,  Great  -Books  as  Life- 
Teachers  , 

Studies  of  Character 
Real  and  Ideal 


By 


Newell  Dwight  Hillis 

Author  of  "The  Investment  of  Influence,'1  "A  Man's 
Value  to  Society,"  etc. 


"  Ideas  are  often  poor  ghosts  ;  but  sometimes  they  are 
made  flesh ;  they  breathe  upon  us  with  warm  breath,  they 
touch  us  with  soft  responsive  hands,  they  look  at  us  with  sad 
sincere  eyes,  and  speak  to  us  in  appealing  tones;  then  their 
presence  is  a  power,  then  they  shake  us  like  a  passion,  and 
we  are  drawn  after  them  with  gentle  compulsion,  as  flame  is 
drawn  to  flame." 


TWENTY- FIFTH  EDITION 


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Mcmvi 


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FOREWORD 

For  some  reason  our  generation  has  closed 
its  text-books  on  ethics  and  morals,  and 
opened  the  great  poems,  essays,  and  novels. 
Doubtless  for  thoughtful  persons  this  fact 
argues,  not  a  decline  of  interest  in  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  right  living,  but  a  desire 
to  study  these  principles  as  they  are  made  flesh 
and  embodied  in  living  persons.  The  leaders 
in  literature  have  their  supremacy  less  through 
the  charm  of  a  faultless  style  than  because 
they  discuss  problems  old  as  life  itself — prob- 
lems of  love^friendship,  and  passion,  problems 
of  ambition  and  the  desire  for  money,  office, 
and  good  name,  problems  of  temptation  and 
sin,  problems  of  the  soul's  wreckage,  and  its 
recovery  also.  It  is  often  said  that  literature 
is  the  greatest  of  the  fine  arts,  and  certainly 
it  is  of  all  the  arts  the  wisest  and  most  inspir- 
ing, serving  at  once  as  tutor,  guide,  and 
friend.  In  this  era,  when  fiction  is  increas- 
ingly the  medium  of  amusement  and  instruc- 
tion, and  when  the  great  poets  and  essayists 
are  becoming  the  prophets  of  a  new  social 
5 


164101 


Foreword 

order,  it  seems  important  to  remember  that 
the  great  novelists  are  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously teachers  of  morals,  while  the  most 
fascinating  essays  and  poems  are  essentially 
books  of  aspiration  and  spiritual  culture. 
Lest  the  scope  of  these  studies  be  misunder- 
stood, it  should  be  said  that  the  author 
approaches  these  volumes  from  the  view- 
point of  a  pastor,  interested  in  literature  as  a 
help  in  the  religious  life,  and  seeking  to  find 
in  these  writings  bread  for  those  who  are 
hungry,  light  for  those  who  are  in  darkness, 
and  life  for  those  who  walk  in  the  shadow  of 
death.  Leaving  to  others  the  problems  of 
literary  criticism,  these  studies  emphasize  the 
importance  of  right  thinking  in  order  to  right 
conduct  and  character,  and  the  uses  of  great 
books  as  aids  and  incentives  to  the  higher 
Christian  life. 

NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS. 

Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
October  25,  1899. 


Great  Books  as   Life- 
Teachers 


By  NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 

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CONTENTS 


The  New  Times,  and  the  Poets  and  Essayists 

as  Prophets  of  a  New  Era         .          .  1 5 

II 

John  Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 
as  Interpreters  of  the  Seven  Laws  of  Life 
— A  Study  of  the  Principles  of  Character 
Building  ......  39 

III 

George  Eliot's  Tito,  in  "  Romola" — A  Study 
of  the  Peril  of  Tampering  with  Conscience 
and  the  Gradual  Deterioration  of  Character  63 

IV 

Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter"  and  the  Retrib- 
utive Workings  of  Conscience — A  Study 
of  the  Necessity  and  Nobility  of  Repent- 
ance, and  the  Confession  of  Sin  .  .  89 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" — The  Battle 
of  the  Angels  and  the  Demons  for  Man's 
Soul.  How  Jean  Valjean  was  Recovered 
from  Passion  and  Sin  to  Christian  Service 
and  Self-sacrifice  .  .  .  .  .119 

VI 

Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" — An  Out- 
look upon  the  Soul's  Epochs  and  Teachers  153 


VII 

The   Tragedy    of  the   Ten -Talent    Men — A 

Study  of  Browning's  "Saul"  .          .          .181 

VIII 

The  Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond,  and  the 
Dawn  of  an  Era  of  Friendship  between 
Science  and  Religion  .  .  .  .207 

IX 

The  Opportunities  of  Leisure  and  Wealth  —  An 

Outlook  upon  the  Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury    231 


The  Biography  of  Frances  Willard,  and  the 
Heroes  of  Social  Reform  —  A  Study  of  the 
Knights  of  the  New  Chivalry  .  .  .255 

XI 
Blaikie's  Life  of  David  Livingstone  —  A  Study 

of  Nineteenth-Century  Heroism  .     279 

XII 

The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics  —  A  Study  of 

the  Life  of  William  Evvart  Gladstone          .     309 


The  New  Times,  and  the  Poets  and  Es- 
sayists as  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 


In  inorganic  and  material  nature  there  is  an  im- 
pulse, whatever  it  may  be,  by  which  things  unfold 
and  work  steadily  toward  higher  excellence.  It  is 
with  immense  waste,  it  is  circuitous,  slow,  with  some- 
thing of  retroaction;  but  the  unfolding  of  nature  by 
this  mute  and  latent  tendency  to  go  toward  a  better 
future,  leavens  the  world  like  yeast,  and  develops  it 
as  well.  This  is  the  spirit  of  the  ages,  the  genius  of 
the  universe.  All  creation  is  on  the  march.  The 
stars  are  revolving.  The  dead  crust  of  the  earth 
feels  the  necessity  of  moving.  The  whole  vegetable 
kingdom  is  moving  onward  and  upward.  The  animal 
kingdom,  too,  keeps  step,  unconscious  of  the  impel- 
ling cause.  Man,  as  if  he  heard  the  music  drowsily 
and  afar  off,  joins  the  strange  procession,  and  strug- 
gles on  and  upward  also. 

It  is  a  strange  march  of  creation,  moving  to  unheard 
music,  with  unseen  banners,  to  some  great  enterprise. 
When  it  shall  finally  encamp  and  hang  out  the  ban- 
ners of  victory,  no  one  knoweth  but  He  who  liveth  in 
eternity,  before  whom  a  thousand  years  are  but  as 
.  one  day,  and  one  day  as  a  thousand  years. — HENRY 
WARD  BEECHER. 


,v^. 

/  V 

I    UNIVERSITY  S 


THE  NEW  TIMES,  AND  THE   POETS   AND    ES- 
SAYISTS AS  PROPHETS  OF  A  NEW  ERA 

The  pledge  of  the  "New  Times"  is  the 
promise,  "In  the  last  days  I  will  pour  out 
my  spirit  on  all  flesh."  Therefore  "Great 
Pan"  is  not  dead,  morals  are  not  sta- 
tionary, inspiration  is  not  ancient  history, 
and  the  Bible  is  not  closed.  Men  have 
been  telling  us  that  God  once  pitched  His 
tents  close  beside  the  tents  of  Abraham 
and  Moses.  In  those  far-off  days  He  made 
friends  with  each  sage  and  seer.  But  it  is 
said  centuries  have  passed  since  the  divine 
form  withdrew  from  the  earthly  scene. 
And,  lo,  comes  this  divine  overture!  'God's 
wine  is  freshly  poured.  Each  is  to  be  a 
new-born  bard,  xjhispiration  is  to  speak  in 
each  voice,  as  song  bubbles  in  the  lark's 
throat.  Before  the  dullest  eyes  "the  vision 
splendid"  dawns.  Each  day  is  to  be  deluged 
with  divinity.  Rifts  are  made  in  the  clouds, 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

signals  are  hung  over  the  battlements, 
voices  from  the  sky  come  and  keep  coming. 
Each  man  is  challenged  to  make  ready  for  a 
divine  invasion.  And  God  is  not  "of  old, " 
but  is  as  new  as  the  last  apple  blossom,  as 
.fresh  as  the  last  bud  or  babe.  The  divine 
dew  is  not  burned  off  the  grass.  The  divine 
light  has  not  faded  from  the  sky.  The 
rustle  of  divine  garments  is  still  in  the  ear. 

What  God  was,  He  is.  What  He  did, 
He  does.  What  He  said,  He  says.  It  is 
little  that  of  old  He  helped  Moses,  if  He  no 
longer  helps  men.  The  strength  of  our 
vineyards  is  not  that  once  the  sun  warmed 
the  Valcntian  hills.  The  clusters  ripen  be- 
cause the  all-maturing  sun  comes  to-day, 
and  keeps  coming.  It  is  much  that  God 
spake  to  man  centuries  ago,  but  it  is  more, 
that  while  He  still  speaks,  the  poets  and 
patriots  muse,  and  the  sacred  fires  burn. 
To  our  generation  God  comes,  pouring  out 
His  heart  in  tidal  waves,  making  each  man 
a  sage,  each  youth  a  seer,  each  handmaiden 
a  prophet  of  better  days  and  higher  things. 

To-day  men  are  saying  God  is  ancient 
history.  Gone  forever  the  age  of  poetry 
and  romance  and  heroism!  No  more 

16 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

Shakespeares !  No  more  Dantes!  Genius 
has  forsaken  the  temple.  Hollow-eyed, 
she  haunts  the  market-place.  Science  is 
cold  and  dead.  Ours  is  the  age  of  hum- 
drum and  realism.  At  home  the  critics  tell 
us  Emerson  and  Lowell  and  Longfellow 
are  gone,  and  have  left  no  successors. 
Abroad  men  mourn  for  Browning,  whose 
torch,  falling,  flickered  out.  Tennyson, 
rising  in  a  heavenly  chariot  out  of  the  temple 
of  song,  forgot  to  cast  his  mantle  upon 
some  waiting  Elisha,  but  carried  the  divine 
garment  into  the  realm  beyond  the  clouds. 
In  music,  Wagner  is  dead,  dust  is  thick  upon 
his  harp,  and  the  new  music  does  but  re- 
echo the  old  melody.  In  fiction,  the  pes- 
simists tell  us,  the  rosy  tints  of  idealism 
have  faded  out,  leaving  only  the  old  gray 
morn.  "It  only  remains  for  us/'  adds  the 
art  critic,  "to  copy  the  nymphs  and  the 
madonnas  of  old."  "The  age  of  great 
editors  and  the  molding  of  communities  has 
gone,"  echoes  the  journalist.  "Let  us  be 
content  to  report  the  dry-as-dust  facts  of 
life." 

No  more  eloquence  in  statesmanship,  for 
Webster   and  Gladstone  and  Lincoln  have 


Great  Books  as  Life-Teachers 

passed  away.  No  more  oratory  at  the  bar; 
henceforth  only  moldy  precedents.  No 
more  passion  in  the  pulpit,  for  Beecher  and 
Brooks  and  Liddon  and  Spurgeon  have  no 
successors.  No  more  liberty  in  theology, 
for  saith  some  General  Assembly:  "In 
Wesley  or  Calvin  God  reached  His  limits. 
He  is  unequal  to  another  Augustine.  The 
book  of  theology  is  closed.  Henceforth  if 
any  man  adds  unto  or  takes  away  from  our 
Confession,  let  his  name  be  taken  out  of 
our  book  of  ecclesiastical  life."  No  more 
creative  work,  only  copying,  annotating,  and 
criticising.  The  divine  resources,  overgen- 
erous  to  men  of  yesterday,  have  no  full 
tides  for  all  flesh  to-day.  Reasoning  thus, 
pessimism  proclaims  exhaustion  in  the  infi- 
nite. Conservatism  becomes  atheistic.  God 
is  bound  up  in  manuscripts,  as  Lazarus  was 
wrapped  in  grave-clothes.  But  God  is  a 
seed,  not  a  dying  leaf.  God  is  a  rosy  dawn, 
not  a  falling  star.  God  is  a  flaming  sun, 
not  the  astronomy  that  describes  it.  God 
is  a  living  voice,  not  the  creed  that  explains 
Him.  God  is  flaming,  eternal  truth,  not 
the  manuscripts  in  which  some  sage  once 
wrote.  His  outpoured  spirit  that  began 
18 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

as    a    trickling    stream    is    become    a    river 
"deep  enough  to  swim  in." 

In  a  world  like  ours  it  ought  not  to  seem 
strange  that  God  hath  kept  His  best  wine 
of  civilization  until  the  last  of  the  feast. 
Everything  in  nature  and  history  proclaims 
this  as  His  working  principle.  Science  tells 
us  that  our  earth,  now  waving  with  harvests 
from  Maine  to  Oregon,  began  its  history  as 
cold,  dead  rock.  Slowly  the  scant  soil  grew 
deep.  Huge  billows  of  fire  melted  down 
the  granite  peaks ;  the  glaciers  ground  down 
the  bowlders;  the  summers  and  winters 
pulverized  rock  into  soil  that  was  shallow 
and  poor.  And  when  the  scant  plant  life 
began,  it  carried  fonvard  this  enriching  work; 
the  bush  shook  down  its  leaves,  the  tree  gave 
its  trunk  to  decay,  the  clouds  gave  rain,  the 
snows  gave  their  gases,  until  at  last  the  soil 
became  rich  and  deep,  and  earth  was  all 
glorious  with  fields  and  forests.  And  the 
animal  life,  too,  began  at  nothing  and 
increased  in  kind  and  dignity.  After  the 
snail  that  crawled  came  the  bird  that  flew, 
the  beast  that  walked,  the  deer  that  ran. 
Last  of  all  came  man,  lord  over  all.  Soci- 
ety also  has  moved  from  the  little  to  the 
19 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

large,  and  the  poor  to  the  rich.  Slowly 
man's  hut  journeyed  toward  the  house,  his 
forked  stick  toward  the  steam  plow,  his 
blundering  speech  toward  the  orator's  elo- 
quence, the  whistler's  notes  toward  the 
deep-toned  organ,  the  smoking  altars  toward 
the  glorious  temple,  the  reign  of  force  toward 
the  rule  of  right.  So  slow  has  the  upward 
movement  been,  that  man  must  needs  pro- 
tect himself  against  pessimism  by  remem- 
bering that  with  God  "a  thousand  years  are 
as  one  day." 

The  individual  life  also  re-emphasizes 
this  principle.  The  youth  begins  indeed 
with  rushing  tides  of  hope  and  inspira- 
tion, but  moving  on  toward  his  maturity  the 
freshness  and  innocence  of  his  earlier  days 
do  not  die  out,  but  the  morning  splendor 
strengthens  into  the  richer,  fuller  noon. 
Surveying  history,  the  scholar  sees  that  the 
centuries  have  not  been  growing  darker, 
drearier,  and  worse.  Man's  march  has  been 
upward  and  forward  until  our  earth  is  all 
afire  with  a  glory  that  burns  brighter  and 
brighter.  Society  is  not  like  Wordsworth's 
child  that  came  "  trailing  clouds  of  glory  " 
that  died  out  into  the  light  of  common  day. 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

Man  did  not  begin  with  a  great  storehouse 
filled  with  treasure.  Mankind  began  with 
scant  resources,  and  slowly  moved  on  tow- 
ard these  days,  when  society's  granaries 
are  well-nigh  overflowing.  Each  new  era 
brings  new  inspirations.  God's  method 
always  is  to  surprise  men  by  bringing  forth 
the  best  wine  at  the  last  of  the  feast.  Each 
new  century  wins  so  many  new  tools,  arts 
and  industries  that  in  contrast  the  preceding 
one  seems  like  an  age  of  darkness,  even  as 
the  sun  makes  the  electric  light  cast  a 
shadow. 

Since  God  hath  pledged  to  society  new 
leaders  for  new  emergencies,  what  are  the 
signs  of  their  coming?  What  go  we  out  to 
see?  If  we  ask  history  to  instruct  us,  we 
shall  see  that  every  prophet  foretelling  new 
times  has  had  three  characteristics.  He  is 
a  seer  and  sees  clearly.  He  is  a  great  heart 
and  feels  deeply.  He  is  a  hero  and  dares 
valiantly.  But  vision-power  is  the  first  and 
last  gift.  That  vision  and  outlook  God  has 
given  to  every  Moses  and  Elijah,  to  every 
John  and  Paul,  and  with  instant  skill  they 
have  laid  the  finger  upon  the  diseased  spot 
in  the  social  life.  But  it  is  not  enough  that 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

the  seer  has  the  vision  that  sees.  Zola 
can  describe,  Balzac  can  picture,  James 
can  photograph  deeds  and  traits.  But  these 
shed  no  tears.  They  feel  no  heartache.  They 
paint,  but  do  not  pity.  With  solemn  pag- 
eantry of  words  Gibbon  caused  the  Roman 
centuries  to  pass  before  each  reader.  The 
mind  of  this  great  historian  worked  with  the 
precision  of  a  logic  engine — cold,  smooth, 
and  faultless.  But  Carlyle's  eloquence  is 
logic  set  on  fire.  What  his  mind  saw  his 
heart  also  felt.  All  the  woe,  and  pathos, 
and  tragedy  of  the  French  Revolution  swept 
in  billows  over  him,  and  broke  his  heart. 
Gibbon  worked  in  cold,  white  light.  Car- 
lyle  dipped  his  pen  in  his  heart's  blood. 
Therefore  Carlyle's  history  is  a  seething  fire. 
But  Gibbon's  is  only  the  picture  of  a  fire — 
mere  canvas  and  paint. 

Moreover,  the  prophet  who  is  guided  of 
God  adds  to  the  great  mind  and  the  sym- 
pathetic heart  a  third  quality.  Every  Paul 
and  John,  every  Savonarola  and  Luther, 
has  had  a  consuming  passion  for  right- 
eousness. Purity  has  been  the  crowning 
quality  of  all  the  epoch-making  men.  For 
lack  of  righteousness  Bacon  lost  his  leader- 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

ship.  While  his  head  was  in  the  clouds 
his  feet  were  in  the  mire.  So  great  was 
Goethe's  genius  that  he  sometimes  seems 
like  one  driving  steeds  of  the  sun,  but 
self-indulgence  took  off  his  chariot  wheels. 
Therefore  the  German  poet  has  never  been 
to  his  century  all  that  Milton  was  to 
his  age.  During  his  life  Goethe  always 
kept  two  friends  busy — the  one  weaving 
laurels  for  his  brow,  the  other  cleaning  mud 
from  his  garments.  But  Paul,  striding  the 
earth  like  a  moral  Colossus,  braving  kings, 
daring  armies,  toppling  down  thrones,  set- 
ting nations  free,  has  dwelt  apart  from 
iniquity.  John  and  Paul,  Hampden  and 
Pym,  seem  like  white  clouds  floating  above 
the  sloughs  from  which  they  rise.  Great 
was  the  intellectual  genius  of  Moses  and 
Paul !  Wondrous,  too,  their  sympathy  for 
human  woe  and  pain !  But  their  supremacy 
was  chiefly  moral  genius.  In  them  reason 
and  affection  dwelt  close  beside  conscience, 
and  were  bound  up  in  one  powerful  person- 
ality, as  light  and  heat  are  twisted  together 
in  each  beam  of  the  all-maturing  sun. 
Heaven's  most  precious  gift  to  earth  is  "the 
soul  of  a  man  actually  sent  down  from  the 
23 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

skies  with  a  God's-message  to  us*';  and 
these  are  his  credentials :  vision-power,  sym- 
pathy, sincerity,  and  zeal  for  righteous- 
ness.* 

Now,  if  these  are  indeed  the  signs  of  the 
prophets,  then  of  a  truth  hath  God  sent  seers 
unto  our  age  and  land.  Consciously  or  un- 
consciously, thedivinetideshave  been  poured 
out  upon  our  authors.  Our  writers  are  be- 
coming prophets.  A  new  spirit  like  a  summer 
atmosphere  is  sweetening  all  our  literature. 
In  reading  the  works  of  Cicero  or  Seneca  one 
must  glean  and  glean  for  single  humanitarian 
sentiments.  Their  writings  are  exquisite  in 
form  and  polished  like  statues,  but  they  are 
without  heart  or  humanity.  Even  English 
literature,  from  Fielding  and  Smollet  down 
to  Pope  and  Dryden,  teems  with  scorn  and 
sneers  for  the  uneducated  poor.  The  works 
of  Sidney  Smith  are  filled  with  contempt- 
uous allusions  to  the  vulgar  herd. 

Until  recently  the  English  poets  purged 
their  pages  of  all  peasants,  and  the  novelists 
will  have  for  hero  no  man  less  than  a  squire, 
and  deal  chiefly  with  lords  and  ladies.  But 
to-day  the  people,  with  their  woes  and 

*Carlyle's  Heroes  and  Hero- Worship,  page  274. 
24 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

griefs,  have  found  a  standing  in  literature. 
A  new  spirit  has  been  " poured  out."  The 
new  era  began  with  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin," 
when  a  slave  stood  forth  as  a  candidate  for 
hero-worship.  Then  Dickens  became  the 
knight  errant  of  each  "Oliver  Twist,"  and 
society  began  to  hear  "the  bitter  cry  of  the 
children."  All  literature  has  become  per- 
meated with  sympathy  for  the  under  classes. 
Great  authors  no  longer  look  with  deri- 
sion upon  those  underneath  them,  and 
none  dare  insult  "the  common  people."* 
A  host  of  writers  like  Victor  Hugo  and 
George  Eliot  and  Charles  Kingsley  and 
Walter  Besant  have  come  in  to  give  their 
whole  souls  to  softening  the  lot  of  human- 
ity. To-day  all  literature  is  working  for  the 
once  despised  and  unbefriended  classes. 
Moreover,  books  that  have  no  enthusiasm 
for  humanity  are  speedily  sent  to  the  garret. 
Society  cares  less  and  less  for  work  of  artistic 
finish  and  more  and  more  for  books  filled 
with  sympathy  and  enthusiasm  for  man. 
In  modern  literature  the  books  that  give 
promise  of  abiding  are  those  that  preach  the 

*In  another  generation,  the  expression  "the  com- 
mon people"  will  give  place  to  "the  people." 

25 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

gospel  of  humanity  to   the  poor.     Verily, 
our  authors  have  become  prophets! 

Our  greatest  thinkers  also,  like  Ruskin 
and  Carlyle,  Emerson  and  Lowell,  Brown- 
ing and  Tennyson,  have  ceased  to  be  poets 
and  essayists,  and  have  become  seers.  A 
divine  something  is  making  each  lyre  sacred. 
Our  singers  are  giving  themselves  to  lifting 
up  those  ''fugitive  ideals"  the  pursuit  of 
which  makes  man's  progress.  God  has 
always  stayed  the  ages  upon  some  bard  or 
singer,  and  breathed  His  purposes  and  provi- 
dences through  parables  and  poems.  And 
in  our  day  He  has  caused  Emerson  to  stand 
forth  a  veritable  prophet,  telling  each  indi- 
vidual that  being  is  better  than  seeing;  tell- 
ing the  orator  and  publicist  that  it  is  good 
for  a  man  to  have  a  hearing,  but  better  for 
him  to  deserve  the  hearing;  telling  the 
reformer  that  the  single  man,  who  indomi- 
tably plants  himself  upon  his  divine  instincts 
and  there  abides,  will  find  the  whole  world 
coming  around  to  him.  And  Carlyle  also 
was  God's  prophet — a  seer  stormy  indeed 
and  impetuous,  with  a  great  hatred  for  lies 
and  laziness,  and  a  mighty  passion  for  truth 
and  work;  lashing  our  shams  and  hypoc- 
26 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

risies;  telling  our  materialistic  age  that  it 
was  going  straight  to  the  devil,  and  by  a 
vulgar  road  at  that ;  pointing  out  the  abyss 
into  which  luxury  and  licentiousness  have 
always  plunged.  Like  Elijah  of  old,  Car- 
lyle  loved  righteousness,  hated  cant,  and 
did  ever  plead  for  justice,  and  mercy,  and 
truth.  If  his  every  sentence  was  laden  with 
intellect,  it  was  still  more  heavily  laden 
with  character.  To  the  great  Scotchman 
God  gave  the  prophet's  vision  and  the 
seer's  sympathy  and  scepter. 

Even  our  greatest  art  critic  also  has  be- 
come a  prophet.  By  acclamation  we  vote 
Ruskin  the  first  prose  writer  of  his  century. 
But  he  has  his  fame  because  of  his  work  as 
a  social  reformer,  rather  than  as  an  art 
critic.  The  heart  of  Ruskin's  message  is: 
life  without  industry  is  guilt;  that  industry 
without  art  is  brutality;  that  men  cannot 
eat  stone  nor  drink  steam ;  that  the  apples 
of  Sodom  and  the  grapes  of  Gomorrah,  the 
daintiest  of  ashes  and  the  nectar  of  asps  will 
feed  no  man's  strength;  that  the  making  of 
self-sufficing  men  is  a  business  worthy  the 
ambition  of  cities  and  states;  that  ten-talent 
men  returning  to  give  an  account  of  their 
27 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

stewardship  can  never  thrust  gold  into  God's 
hands;  that  man  lives  not  alone  by  tending 
cattle  and  tending  corn,  but  by  the  manna 
of  God's  wondrous  words  and  works;  that 
justice  and  truth  and  love  alone  are  able 
to  turn  this  desert  earth  into  the  garden  of 
God  until  all  the  valleys  are  covered  with  vine- 
yards and  the  shouts  of  the  happy  multi- 
tudes ring  around  the  wine-press  and  the 
well. 

Here  is  Lowell,  also,  telling  us  that  upon 
the  open  volume  of  the  world,  with  a 
pen  of  sunshine  and  destroying  fire,  the 
inspired  present  is  even  now  writing  the 
annals  of  God,  and  that  while  "the  old 
Sinai,  silent  now,  is  only  a  common  moun- 
tain, stared  at  by  elegant  tourists  and 
crawled  over  by  hammering  geologists," 
there  are  tables  of  a  new  law  among  the 
factories  and  cities,  where  in  this  wilderness 
of  sin  each  leader  is  a  prophet  of  a  new 
social  order,  and  where 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties;  time  makes  ancient 

good  uncouth; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward,  who  would  keep 

abreast  of  truth. 
Lo,  before  us  gleam  her  campfires!    We  ourselves 

must  pilgrims  be; 

28 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

Launch  our  Mayflower  and  steer  boldly  through  the 

desperate  winter's  sea, 
Nor  attempt  the  future's  portal  with  the  past's  blood 

rusted  key. 

If  now  we  examine  the  tendency  of  inven- 
tion and  the  mechanical  arts,  we  shall  find 
that  even  tools  have  become  evangelists  and 
machines  prophets  of  a  new  day.  From 
every  quarter  come  voices  foretelling  an 
age  of  wealth,  and  happiness,  and  comfort. 
Many  feel  that  we  are  upon  the  threshold 
of  new  and  wondrous  mechanical  discover- 
ies. Already  science  has  fashioned  sixty 
steel  slaves  for  every  family.  Edison  thinks 
the  time  is  rapidly  approaching  when  this 
number  is  to  be  increased  to  two  hundred. 
But  each  tool  is  ordained  of  God  for  the 
reinforcement  of  manhood.  Every  time  a 
river  is  enslaved  a  thousand  men  are  set 
free.  Every  time  an  iron  wheel  is  mastered 
a  thousand  human  muscles  are  emancipated. 
In  nature  God's  machines  are  called  natural 
laws.  Man's  natural  laws  are  his  machines. 
And  while  the  new  conveniences  have 
brought  an  increase  of  happiness  and  com- 
fort to  the  rich,  they  have  done  a  thousand- 
fold more  for  the  poor.  There  never  has 
been  an  age  when  the  rich  could  not  travel 
39 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

rapidly.     But    steam    enables   the   poorest 
man  to  travel  rapidly. 

Always  the  rich  could  wear  warm  gar- 
ments, but  the  looms  gives  soft  raiment  to 
the  poor.  Always  the  rich  could  buy 
books.  In  the  tenth  century  the  Countess 
of  Anjou  gave  two  hundred  sheep,  one 
load  of  wheat,  one  load  of  rye,  and  one 
load  of  millet  for  a  volume  of  sermons  writ- 
ten by  a  German  monk.  Now  our  people 
buy  the  works  of  our  greatest  essayists,  novel- 
ists, and  poets  for  one  penny,  or  two.  The 
new  printing  presses  have  placed  all  the  clas- 
sics within  the  reach  of  the  poorest.  Chiefly 
is  invention  refining  the  multitude  through 
the  diffusion  of  the  beautiful.  The  time 
was  when  only  the  prince  could  afford  a 
painting.  Now  photography  multiplies ' '  the 
masters,"  and  during  the  long  winter  even- 
ings, while  the  tired  body  rests,  the  illus- 
trated paper  causes  the  pyramids  and  tem- 
ples and  palaces  and  mountains  and  rivers 
of  the  earth  to  pass  before  the  fascinated 
eye  and  mind.  The  sense  of  beauty  once 
condensed  in  painting  or  statue  or  cathedral 
is  now  diffused.  It  is  sprinkled  upon  the 
floor;  it  hangs  upon  the  walls;  it  adorns  the 
30 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  lira 

tables ;  it  enriches  the  chambers  of  affection ; 
it  refines  and  sweetens  the  universal  life. 

Indeed,  the  workingman  of  to-day  enjoys 
comforts  that  were  the  despair  of  barons 
and  princes  of  three  hundred  years  ago. 
And  each  new  discovery  seems  not  so  much 
to  bring  power  to  the  strong  and  rich  as  to 
toil  in  the  interests  of  the  weak  and  help- 
less. As  in  the  olden  days  Jesus  Christ 
approved  Himself  by  preaching  the  gospel  to 
the  poor,  so  now  every  convenience  comes 
in,  having  this  divine  sanction.  The  poems 
of  to-day  are  ships  and  engines  and  reapers. 
Tools  free  the  mind  for  books,  free  the  taste 
and  imagination  for  beauty,  free  the  affec- 
tion for  social  service.  Thereby  comes  the 
day  of  universal  happiness  and  civilization 
of  which  the  poet  dreams,  toward  which  the 
philanthropist  works.  As  once  the  prophets 
so  now  God  is  baptizing  inventors  and  their 
tools  with  the  spirit  of  service.  Some  Watt, 
perhaps,  with  a  new  method  of  transit,  mak- 
ing it  possible  for  the  dwellers  in  tenements 
to  journey  into  the  country  ten  miles  in 
ten  minutes  for  half  as  many  pence,  will, 
through  sunshine  and  fresh  air,  cleanse  and 
gospelize  the  cellars  and  garrets  of  our  slum 
3' 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

districts.  Soon  tools  are  to  become  evan- 
gelists of  the  higher  life. 

It  ought  to  go  without  saying  that  the 
preachers  are  prophets  divine.  It  would 
be  sad  indeed  if  they,  instead  of  being 
seers  and  living  forces,  should  fade  into 
emblematic  figures  at  christenings,  wed- 
dings, and  funerals,  or  become  mere  guardi- 
ans of  theological  dogmas.  History  tells 
us  every  new  era  has  been  created  by  a 
preacher.  Guizot  insists  that  Paul  did  more 
for  liberty  and  free  institutions  than  any 
man  who  ever  stood  on  Western  soil. 
Froude  says  it  was  not  the  scholar  Erasmus, 
but  the  preacher  Luther,  who  created  the 
Reformation.  It  was  a  prophet  of  Florence 
that  turned  the  city  of  art  into  the  city  of 
God.  Those  moral  teachers  named  Caedmon, 
Bede,  Bunyan,  and  the  translators  of  King 
James's  version  of  the  Bible  opened  up  for 
us  the  springs  of  English  literature. 

Cromweirs  letters  tell  us  that  the  Puritan 
preachers  destroyed  the  divine  rights  of 
kings,  that  citadel  of  falsehood  and  cruelty 
and  crime.  It  was  Robertson  of  Brighton 
that  first  said  that  man  was  never  justified 
by  faith  until  faith  had  made  man  just.  It 
32 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

was  a  preacher,  Barnett,  who  went  to  live 
in  Whitechapel  Road,  and  in  that  wilder- 
ness of  ignorance  and  misery  founded  a 
social  settlement  to  which  came  students 
from  Oxford  and  Cambridge  to  give  them- 
selves to  the  poor.  It  was  a  preacher, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who,  when  men  said 
that  evolution  would  destroy  the  Bible, 
drove  out  fear  and  doubt,  and  showed  us  that 
the  theory  of  theistic  evolution  insured  the 
immortality  of  the  Bible  and  the  permanency 
of  Christianity. 

The  scholar  returns  from  his  survey,  hav- 
ing seen  that  in  every  realm  God  is  causing 
life  to  expand  and  take  on  increasing  breadth 
and  richness.  Man's  religion,  therefore,  is 
assuming  new  proportions,  greater  reason- 
ableness, and  higher  ideals  of  service.  For 
the  church  also,  a  new  era  has  dawned. 
As  our  age  journeys  away  from  Bacon's 
theft,  but  gladly  carries  forward  his  philos- 
ophy ;  as  society  has  left  behind  the  sins  of 
Robert  Burns,  but  joyfully  carries  forward 
his  sweet  songs;  so  the  church  is  journeying 
away  from  the  falsities  of  medievalism,  but 
carries  forward  the  sweetness  and  light  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Gone  forever  the  hideous 
33 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

dogmas  that  tortured  our  fathers!  Gone 
forever  the  scholasticisms  that  confused 
Satan  with  God !  Never  again  will  the 
cross  mean  pacifying  the  wrath  of  an  angry 
deity.  Never  again  will  a  man  be  asked  to 
debase  his  reason  in  order  to  exalt  his  heart. 
The  church  is  exchanging  the  worship  of 
the  past  for  the  heritage  of  the  present,  the 
old  philosophies  for  the  new  living  Christ. 
We  have  already  seen  the  shapes  of  mental 
and  moral  beauty  increase  in  number;  we 
have  seen  our  youth  journeying  toward  the 
schoolhouse;  our  homes  growing  beautiful 
and  happy;  our  workers  moving  in  the 
morning  hours  toward  shop  and  store,  car- 
rying in  their  hands  the  emblems  of  knowl- 
edge; new  and  nobler  forms  of  literature 
coming  from  the  rapid  press,  and  now  it  is 
given  us  to  behold  Christianity  moving  for- 
ward with  increasing  breadth,  and  having 
the  might  and  majesty  of  a  river  of  God. 

Already  that  divine  teacher,  Christ,  hath 
touched  poverty  and  clothed  it  with  power; 
hath  touched  marriage  and  surrounded  it 
with  romance  and  love;  hath  touched  the 
soldier  and  turned  him  into  a  hero  and 
patriot.  And  now  He  is  here  to  touch  work 
34 


The  Prophets  of  a  New  Era 

and  wages,  making  them  sacraments  of 
human  fellowship.  Christ  is  also  here  to 
enrich  each  life  with  new  and  impressive 
forms  of  mental  and  moral  beauty.  He 
offers  man  new  powers  and  new  impulses. 
The  force  of  the  ship  is  in  the  trade 
wind  that  sweeps  it  on,  and  the  joy  of  the 
sailor  is  in  the  harbor  toward  which  he  moves. 
Not  otherwise  the  dignity  and  majesty  of 
life  are  in  the  divine  motives  that  sweep  the 
soul  upward  and  in  the  sublime  destiny  to- 
ward which  the  soul  moves.  In  days  gone 
by  this  divine  Teacher  put  justice  into  law, 
ethics  into  politics,  love  into  religion,  and 
planted  immortal  hopes  upon  our  graves. 
Having  girded  the  heroes  of  old  for  their 
tasks,  He  steps  into  the  new  era,  to  continue 
the  line  of  prophets  and  heroes.  He  offers 
to  make  apostolic  succession  a  sublime  fact. 
He  bids  each  youth  stand  in  the  line  of 
heroes  and  seers,  with  Paul  and  Socrates  and 
Savonarola ;  with  Hampden,  Washington 
and  Lincoln.  He  bids  each  maiden  strike 
hands  of  noble  friendship  with  Augusta  Stan- 
ley and  Florence  Nightingale  and  Frances 
Willard.  He  bids  the  patriot  of  to-day  emu- 
late and  surpass  the  heroes  of  yesterday. 
35 


II 

John  Ruskin's  "  Seven  Lamps  of  Archu 
tecture "  as  Interpreters  of  the  Seven 
Laws  of  Life — A  Study  of  the  Princi- 
ples of  Character  Building 


I  know  well  the  common  censure  by  which  objec- 
tions to  such  futilities  of  so-called  education  are  met 
by  the  men  who  have  been  ruined  by  them — the  com- 
mon plea  that  anything  does  to  "exercise  the  mind 
upon."  It  is  an  utterly  false  one.  The  human  soul, 
in  youth,  is  not  a  machine  of  which  you  can  polish 
the  cogs  with  any  kelp  or  brick-dust  near  at  hand; 
and,  having  got  it  into  working  order,  and  good, 
empty,  and  oiled  serviceableness,  start  your  immortal 
locomotive  at  twenty-five  years  old,  or  thirty,  express 
from  the  Strait  Gate,  on  the  Narrow  Road.  The 
whole  period  of  youth  is  one  essentially  of  formation, 
edification,  instruction — I  use  the  words  with  their 
weight  in  them— in  taking  of  stores;  establishment  in 
vital  habits,  hopes,  and  faiths.  There  is  not  an  hour 
of  it  but  is  trembling  with  destinies— not  a  moment 
of  which,  once  past,  the  appointed  work  can  ever  be 
done  again,  or  the  neglected  blow  struck  on  the  cold 
iron.  Take  your  vase  of  Venice  glass  out  of  the  fur- 
nace, and  strew  chaff  over  it  in  its  transparent  heat, 
and  recover  that  to  its  clearness  and  rubied  glory 
when  the  north  wind  has  blown  upon  it;  but  do  not 
think  to  strew  chaff  over  the  child  fresh  from  God's 
presence,  and  to  bring  the  heavenly  colors  back  to 
him— at  least  in  this  world. — Modern  Painters,  Vol. 
I  I  I,  P.  43°. 


II 

JOHN  RUSKIN'S  "SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHI- 
TECTURE" AS  INTERPRETERS  OF  THE 
SEVEN  LAWS  OF  LIFE — A  STUDY  OF  THE 
PRINCIPLES  OF  CHARACTER  BUILDING 

Among  the  heroic  souls  who  have  sought 
to  recover  the  lost  paradise  and  recapture 
the  glory  of  an  undefiled  and  blessed  world 
stands  John  Ruskin,  oft  an  apostle  of  gentle 
words  that  heal  like  medicines,  and  some- 
times a  prophet  of  Elijah-like  sternness  and 
grandeur,  consuming  man's  sins  with  words 
of  flame.  "There  is  nothing  going  on 
among  us,"  wrote  Carlyle  to  Emerson,  "as 
notable  as  those  fierce  lightning  bolts  Rus- 
kin is  copiously  and  desperately  pouring  into 
the  black  world  of  anarchy  around  him. 
No  other  man  has  in  him  the  divine  rage 
against  iniquity,  falsity,  and  baseness  that 
Ruskin  has,  and  every  man  ought  to  have." 
Full  fifty  years  have  passed  since  this  glori- 
ous youth  entered  the  arena,  his  face  glow- 
39 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ing  with  hope,  the  heroic  flame  of  the 
martyrs  burning  within  his  breast,  his  mes- 
\sage  a  plea  for  a  return  to  the  simplicities 
of  virtue.  During  all  these  years  he  has 
been  pouring  forth  prose  of  a  purity  and 
beauty  that  have  never  been  surpassed. 
Over  against  the  brocaded  pages  of  Gibbon 
and  the  pomposity  of  Dr.  Johnson's  style 
stands  Ruskin's  prose,  every  page  embodied 
simplicity,  every  sentence  clear  as  a  cube 
of  solid  sunshine.  Effects  that  Keats  pro- 
duced only  through  the  music  and  magic  of 
verse,  John  Ruskin  has  easily  achieved 
through  the  plainness  of  prose.  What 
Leigh  Hunt  said  of  Shelley  we  may  say  of 
Ruskin — he  needs  only  the  green  sod  be- 
neath his  feet  to  make  him  a  kind  of  human 
lark,  pouring  forth  songs  of  unearthly  sweet- 
ness. 

But  if  the  critics  vote  him  by  acclamation 
the  first  prose  writer  of  the  century,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  his  fame  does  not  rest 
upon  his  skill  as  a  literary  artist.  An  apostle 
of  beauty  and  truth,  indeed,  Ruskin  is  pri- 
marily an  apostle  of  righteousness.  Unlike 
Burns  and  Byron,  Shelley  and  Goethe,  no 
passion  ever  poisoned  his  purposes  and 
4o 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 

no  vice  ever  disturbed  the  working  of  his 
genius.  What  he  taught  in  theory  he  first 
was  in  character  and  did  in  practice.  Rich 
with  great  wealth,  inherited  and  acquired, 
he  refused  interest  upon  his  loans,  and  hav- 
ing begun  with  giving  away  his  income,  he 
ended  by  giving  away  much  of  his  capital. 
Unlike  that  rich  young  man  who  went  away 
from  Christ  sorrowful,  John  Ruskin  gladly 
forsook  all  his  possessions  to  follow  Jesus. 
The  child  of  leisure,  he  chose  to  earn  to- 
morrow's bread  by  to-day's  labor  and  toil. 
Going  every  whither  seeking  for  pictures 
and  marbles  that  represented  ideal  beauty, 
he  used  these  art  treasures  not  so  much  for 
enriching  his  own  life  and  happiness  as  for 
diffusing  the  beautiful  and  furnishing  models 
to  laborers  who  worked  in  iron,  steel,  and 
stone.  If  other  rich  men  have  given  money 
to  found  workingmen's  clubs,  Ruskin  gave 
himself  also,  and  lent  the  toilers  indepen- 
dence and  self-reliance.  It  is  said  that 
through  his  favorite  pupil,  Arnold  Toynbee, 
he  developed  the  germ  of  the  social  settle- 
ments. But  his  fame  rests  neither  upon  his 
work  as  an  art  critic,  nor  his  skill  as  a  prose 
author,  nor  his  work  as  a  social  reformer;  it 
41 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

rests  rather  upon  his  unceasing  emphasis 
of  individual  worth  as  the  secret  of  hap- 
piness and  progress.  If  Mazzini  preached 
the  gospel  of  social  rights,  and  Carlyle  the 
gospel  of  honest  work,  and  Matthew  Arnold 
the  gospel  of  culture,  and  Emersqn  the  gos- 
pel of  sanity  and  optimism,  John  Ruskin's 
message,  repeated  in  a  thousand  forms,  is 
one  message — never  altered  and  never  re- 
treated from — goodness  is  more  than  gold, 
and  character  outweighs  intellect.  Because 
he  stood  for  a  fine,  high,  heroic  regimen,  he 
conquered  confidence,  and  has  his  place 
among  the  immortals. 

If  we  search  out  the  fascination  of  Rus- 
kin's later  works,  we  shall  find  the  secret  in 
/  their  intense  humanity.  Loving  nature, 
RusJarTFeafliest,  latest,  deepest  enthusiasm 
was  for  man.  With  eager  and  passionate 
delight,  in  "Modern  Painters"  he  sets  forth 
the  claim  of  rock  and  wave,  of  herb  and 
shrub,  upon  man's  higher  life.  But  the 
white  clouds,  the  perfumed  winds,  the  val- 
leys covered  with  tended  corn  and  cattle, 
the  mountains  robed  in  pine  as  with  the 
garments  of  God,  seemed  as  nothing  com- 
pared to  man,  who  goes  weeping,  laughing, 
4* 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture'* 

loving,  through  his  pathetic  career.  One 
morning,  crossing  the  field  toward  Matter- 
horn,  he  met  a  suffering  peasant,  and  in 
that  hour  the  mountain  became  as  nothing 
in  the  presence  of  his  brother  man.  In  all 
his  later  books,  therefore,  he  is  a  light- 
bearer,  seeking  to  guide  men  into  happiness 
and^virtueT^He  reminds  the  weary  king  and 
the  tormented  slave  alike  that  the  secrets  of 
happiness  are  in  "drawing  hard  breath  over 
chisel,  or  spade,  or  plow,  in  watching  the 
corn  grow  and  the  blossom  set,  and,  after 
toil,  in  reading,  thinking,  in  hoping  and 
praying. ' '  Would  any  man  be  strong,  let 
him  work;  or  wise,  let  him  observe  and 
think;  or  happy,  let  him  help;  or  influential, 
let  him  sacrifice  and  serve.  Does  some 
youth  deny  beauty  to  the  eye,  books  to  the 
mind,  and  friendship  to  the  heart,  that  he 
may  gather  gold  and  daily  eat  stalled  ox  in 
a  palace?  This  youth  is  a  prince  who  hath 
voluntarily  entered  a  dungeon  to  spend  his 
time  gathering  the  rotting  straw  from  the 
damp  stones  to  twist  it  into  a  filthy  wreath 
for  his  forehead.  Does  some  Samson  of 
industry  use  his  superior  wisdom  to  gather 
into  his  hands  all  the  lines  of  some  branch 
43 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

of  trade  while  others  starve?  He  is  like 
unto  a  wrecker,  who  lures  some  good  ship 
upon  the  rocks  that  he  may  clothe  himself 
with  garments  and  possess  purses  unwrapped 
from  the  bodies  of  brave  men  slain  by  deceit. 
Wealth,  he  asserts,  is  like  any  other  natural 
power  in  nature — divine  if  divinely  used. 
In  the  hands  of  a  miserly  man  wealth  is 
clogged  by  selfishness  and  becomes  like 
rivers  that  "overwhelm  the  plains,  poison- 
ing the  winds,  their  breath  pestilence,  their 
work  famine,"  while  honest  and  benevolent 
wealth  is  like  those  rivers  that  pass  softly 
from  field  to  field,  moistening  the  soil,  puri- 
fying the  air,  giving  food  to  man  and  beast, 
bearing  up  fleets  of  war  and  peace. 

For  John  Ruskin  the  modern  Pharisee  was 
the  man  who  prayed,  "God,  I  thank  thee 
that  I  am  not  as  other  men  are;  I  feast 
seven  days  a  week,  while  I  have  made  other 
men  fast."  And  against  every  form  of 
selfishness  and  injustice  he  toiled,  ever  seek- 
ing to  overthrow  the  kingdoms  of  Mammon 
and  Belial,  laboring  to  make  his  land  a 
"land  of  royal  thrones  for  kings,  a  sceptered 
isle  for  all  the  world,  a  realm  of  light,  a 
center  of  peace,  a  mistress  of  arts,  a  faithful 
44 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps 

guardian  of  great  memories  in  the  midst  of 
irreverence  and  ephemeral  visions."  But 
from  the  first  volume  of  "Modern  Painters" 
to  the  last  pages  of  the  "Praeterita"  his  one 
message  is,  Doing  is  better  than  seeming, 
giving  is  better  than  getting,  and  stooping 
to  serve  better  than  climbing  toward  the 
throne  to  wear  an  outer  crown  and  scepter. 
Over  against  these^boolcs  jealing  with 
man's  ambitions^  strifes,  defeats,  and  sins 
stands  Ruskin's  "Lamps  of  Architecture," 
a  book  written  at  an  hour  when  the  sense 
of  life's  sins,  sorrows,  and  wrongs  swept 
through  his  heart  with  the  might  of  a  dq- 
stroying  storm.  In  that  hour  when  the  pen 
dropped  from  his  hand  and  hope  departed 
from  his  heart,  one  problem  distracted  his 
mind  by  day  and  disturbed  his  sleep  by 
night — "Why  is  the  fruit  shaken  to  the 
earth  before  its  ripeness,  the  glowing  life 
and  the  goodly  purpose  dissolved  away  in 
sudden  death,  the  words  half  spoken  chilled 
upon  the  lips  touched  into  clay  forever,  the 
whole  majesty  of  humanity  raised  to  its 
fullness,  with  every  gift  and  power  neces- 
sary for  a  given  purpose  at  a  given  moment 
centered  in  one  man,  and  all  this  perfected 
45 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

blessing  permitted  to  be  refused,  perverted, 
crushed,  and  cast  aside  by  those  who  need 
it  most — the  city  which  is  not  set  upon  a 
hill,  the  candle  that  giveth  light  to  none 
enthroned  in  the  candlestick?"  The  world's 
ingratitude  to  its  best  men  rested  like  a 
black  cloud  upon  his  spirit.  In  that  hour 
when  the  iron  entered  his  soul  and  ingrati- 
tude blighted  the  blossoms  of  the  heart, 
Ruskin  turned  from  the  baseness  of  man  to 
the  white  statue  that  lifts  no  mailed  hand 
to  strike,  and  exchanged  the  coarse  curses 
of  the  market-place  for  the  sacred  silence  of 
the  cathedral.  He  knew  that  if  wholesome 
labor  wearies  at  first,  afterward  it  lends 
pleasure;  that  if  the  frosty  air  now  chills 
the  peasant's  cheek,  afterward  it  will  make 
his  blood  the  warmer.  But  he  also  knew 
that  "  labor  may  be  carried  to  a  point  of 
utter  exhaustion  from  which  there  is  no 
recovery;  that  cold  passing  to  a  certain 
point  will  cause  the  arm  to  molder  in  its 
socket/'  and  that  heart-sickness  through 
ingratitude  may  cause  the  soul  to  lose  its 
life  forever. 

Leaving  behind  the  tumult  of  the  street 
and  the  din  of  the  market-place,  he  entered 
46 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture " 

the  cathedral,  hoping  in  its  silence  and 
peace  to  find  healing  for  life's  hurts. 
Standing  beneath  the  vast  dome,  in  vision 
hour  he  saw  Von  Rile  or  Angelo  stretching 
out  hands  upon  the  stones  of  the  field  and 
rearing  them  into  some  awful  pile  with  vast 
springing  arches  and  intrepid  pinnacles  that 
go  leaping  toward  Him  whose  home  is  above 
the  clouds  and  beyond  them.  He  saw  walls 
all  glorious  with  lustrous  beauty,  and  knew 
that  artists  had  taken  the  flower  girls  from 
the  streets  and  turned  them  into  angels  for 
the  ceiling ;  had  taken  the  shrunken  beggar, 
hobbling  homeward,  and  made  him  to  reap- 
pear upon  the  canvas  as  an  Apollo  of 
beauty.  He  saw  chapels  once  the  scene  of 
rubbish,  plaster,  and  litter  become  chapels 
of  peace,  glowing  with  angels  and  prophets 
and  sibyls.  One  day,  crossing  the  square  of 
Venice,  he  saw  St.  Mark's  rising  like  a 
vision  out  of  the  ground,  its  front  one  vast 
forest  of  clustered  pillars  of  white  and  gold 
and  rose,  upon  which  rested  domes  glorious 
enough  to  have  been  let  down  from  heaven ; 
a  pile  made  partly  of  mother-of-pearl,  partly 
of  opal,  partly  of  marble,  every  tower  sur- 
mounted by  a  golden  cross  flinging  wide  its 
47 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

arms  to  uplift  the  world,  every  niche  hold- 
ing some  angel  upon  whose  lips  trembled 
words  of  mercy  and  healing.  Lingering 
there,  slowly  the  fever  passed  from  his  heart 
and  the  fret  from  his  mind.  Studying  the 
laws  by  which  foundations  were  made  firm, 
by  which  towers  were  made  secure  and 
domes  perfect,  he  completed  a  volume  in 
which  he  forgot  man,  and  remembered  only 
the  problems  of  stone  and  steel  and  wood ; 
and  yet  as  we  analyze  these  chapters  we  find 
that  these  seven  lamps  of  architecture  are  in 
reality  the  seven  laws  of  life  and  happiness. 
For  the  soul  is  a  temple  more  majestic  than 
any  cathedral — a  temple  in  which  principles 
are  foundation  stones,  and  habits  are  col- 
umns and  pillars,  and  faculties  are  master 
builders,  every  thought  driving  a  nail  and 
every  deed  weakening  or  making  strong 
some  timber,  every  holy  aspiration  lending 
beauty  to  the  ceiling,  as  every  unclean 
thing  lends  defilement' — the  whole  standing 
forth  at  last  builded  either  of  passions, 
worthless  as  wood,  hay,  and  stubble,  or 
builded  of  thoughts  and  purposes  more  pre- 
cious than  gold  and  flashing  gems. 

Lingering  long  in  the  cities  of  Italy,  Rus- 
48 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 

kin  found  some  temples  in  the  full  pride  of 
their  strength  and  the  perfection  of  their 
beauty,  having  passed  unharmed  through 
the  snows  of  a  thousand  winters  and  the 
storms  of  a  thousand  summers.  But  other 
temples  he  found  that  were  mere  shells  of 
their  former  loveliness,  bare  skeletons  of 
pierced  walls,  here  a  tower  and  there  an 
arch.  Studying  these  deserted  temples 
through  which  the  sea  wind  moaned  and 
murmured,  and  the  ruins  that  time  was 
plowing  into  dust,  he  discovered  that  no 
-  robber's  hand  had  wrought  this  ruin,  that  no 
fire  had  consumed  the  arch  or  overthrown  the 
column.  In  Venice  the  roof  of  the  great 
church  had  fallen  because  the  architect  had 
put  lying  stones  in  the  foundation.  In 
Verona  the  people  had  deserted  the  cathe- 
dral because  the  architect  had  built  columns 
of  plaster  and  painted  them  to  look  like 
veined  marble,  forgetting  that  time  would 
soon  expose  the  ugly,  naked  lie.  One  day, 
entering  a  church  in  a  heavy  rainstorm,  he 
found  buckets  placed  to  catch  the  rain  that 
was  dripping  from  the  priceless  frescoes  of 
Tintoretto  because  a  builder  had  put  lying 
tiles  upon  the  roof.  He  saw  ships  cast 

49 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

upon  the  rocks  because  some  smith  had  put 
a  lying  link  in  the  anchor's  cable.  He  saw 
the  members  of  a  household  burning  up 
with  a  fatal  fever  because  the  plumber  had 
used  lying  lead  in  the  drainage.  He  saw 
the  captain  deceiving  himself  about  the  leaks 
in  his  boat  and  taking  sailors  forth  to  a  cer- 
tain death. 

And  in  that  hour  his  whole  soul  revolted 
from  "the  patriotic  lie  of  the  historian,  the 
provident  lie  of  the  politician,  the  zealous  lie 
of  the  partisan,  the  merciful  lie  of  the  friend, 
and  the  careless  lie  of  each  man  to  himself." 
For  if  untruth  is  fatal  to  the  permanency  of 
buildings,  much  more  is  it  fatal  to  excel- 
lence in  the  soul.  For  man  the  beginning 
of  lies  is  ruin,  and  the  end  thereof  death. 
Therefore  in  John's  vision  of  the  city  of 
God  he  saw  there  no  sorcerer,  no  murderer, 
and  no  man  "who  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie/' 
For  life's  deadliest  enemy,  and  its  most 
despicable  one,  is  falseness.  In  the  last 
analysis,  untruth  is  inferiority  and  weakness. 
When  the  teacher  lifts  the  rod,  the  child 
without  other  defense  lifts  up  the  lie  as  a 
shield  against  the  blow.  When  the  dying 
man  asks  his  friends  as  to  his  condition,  the 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 

strong  man,  conscious  of  his  resources  to 
make  his  friend  victorious  over  death, 
speaks  the  instant  truth,  while  the  weak 
man,  unwilling  to  confess  his  poverty  of 
resource,  tells  this  soft  and  glistening  lie, 
"To-morrow  you  will  be  better." 

In  the  realm  of  traffic,  also,  the  wise 
merchant  can  afford  to  sell  his  goods  for 
what  they  are,  but  the  weak  one  feels 
that  he  must  sell  lying  threads,  lying 
foods,  and  lying  drinks.  But  nature  hates 
lies.  She  makes  each  law  a  detective. 
Sooner  or  later  she  runs  down  every  false- 
hood. A  tiny  worm  may  pierce  the  heart 
of  a  young  tree,  and  the  bark  may  hide 
the  secret  gash.  But  as  the  days  go  on 
the  rain  will  cut  one  fiber,  and  the  heat 
another,  and  when  years  have  passed,  some 
time  when  a  soft  zephyr  goes  sighing 
through  the  forest  the  great  tree  will  come 
crashing  down.  For  at  last  nature  will  hunt 
out  every  hidden  weakness.  If  *the  law  of 
truth  is  the  first  law  in  temple-rearing  and 
palace-building,  truth  is  also  the  first  law  in 
happiness  and  character.  When  Christ 
pleads  for  the  new  heart,  He  urges  man  to 
break  with  him  who  is  the  father  of  lies  and 
51 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

swear  fidelity  to  Him  who  is  the  God  of 
truth,  whose  ways  are  happiness,  and  whose 
paths  are  peace. 

To  that  law  of  truth  that  firmly  fixes 
foundations  for  cathedrals,  Ruskin  adds  the 
law  of  obedience.  In  springing  his  wall  the 
architect  must  plumb  the  stones  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  of  gravity.  In  springing 
his  arch  he  must  brace  it,  obeying  the  laws 
of  resistance.  In  lifting  his  tower  he  must 
relate  it  to  the  temple,  obeying  the  law  of 
proportion  and  symmetry;  and  he  who  dis- 
obeys one  fundamental  law  will  find  great 
nature  pulling  his  towers  down  over  his 
head.  For  no  architect  builds  as  he  pleases, 
but  only  as  nature  pleases,  through  laws  of 
gravity,  and  stone,  and  steel.  In  the  king- 
dom of  the  soul  also  obedience  is  strength 
and  life,  and  disobedience  is  weakness  and 
death.  In  the  last  analysis  liberty  is  a 
phantom,  a  dream,  a  mere  figment  of  the 
brain. 

Society's  greatest  peril  to-day  is  the 
demagogues  who  teach  and  the  ignorant 
classes  who  believe  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  liberty.  The  planets  have  no  lib- 
erty ;  they  follow  their  sun.  The  seas  know 
52 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 

no  liberty;  they  follow  the  moon  in  tidal 
waves.  When  the  river  refuses  to  keep 
within  its  banks,  it  becomes  a  curse  and  a 
destruction.  It  is  the  stream  that  is 
restrained  by  its  banks  that  turns  mill- 
wheels  for  men.  The  clouds,  too,  have 
their  beauty  in  that  they  are  led  forth  in 
ranks,  and  columns,  generated  by  the  night 
winds.  And  in  proportion  as  things  pass 
from  littleness  toward  largeness  they  go 
toward  obedience  to  law.  Because  the  dead 
leaf  obeys  nothing,  it  flutters  down  from  its 
bough,  giving  but  tardy  recognition  to  the 
law  of  gravity;  while  our  great  earth,  cov- 
ered with  cities  and  civilization,  is  instantly 
responsive  to  gravity's  law.  Indeed,  he 
who  disobeys  any  law  of  nature  flings  him- 
self athwart  her  wheels,  to  be  crushed  to 
powder.  And  if  disobedience  is  destruction,) 
obedience  is  liberty.  Obeying  the  law  of 
steam,  man  has  an  engine.  Obeying  the 
law  of  fire,  he  has  warmth.  Obeying  the 
law  of  speech,  he  has  eloquence.  Obey- 
ing the  law  of  sound  thinking,  he  has  lead- 
ership. Obeying  the  law  of  Christ,  he  has 
character.  The  stone  obeys  one  law,  grav- 
ity, and  is  without  motion.  The  worm 
53 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

obeys  two  laws,  and  adds  movement.  The 
bird  obeys  three  laws,  and  can  fly  as  well 
as  stand  or  walk.  And  as  man  increases 
the  number  of  laws  that  he  obeys,  he 
increases  in  richness  of  nature,  in  wealth, 
and  strength,  and  influence.  Nature  loves 
paradoxes,  and  this  is  her  chiefest  paradox — 
he  who  stoops  to  wear  the  yoke  of  law  be- 
comes the  child  of  liberty,  while  he  who  will 
be  free  from  God's  law  wears  a  ball  and  chain 
through  all  his  years.  Philosophy  reached 
its  highest  fruition  in  Christ's  principle, 
"Love  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  law." 

Not  less  important  are  the  laws  of  beauty 
and  of  sacrifice.  When  the  marble,  refusing 
to  express  an  impure  or  wicked  thought,  has 
fulfilled  the  law  of  strength,  suddenly  it 
blossoms  into  the  law  of  beauty.  For 
beauty  is  no  outer  polish,  no  surface  adorn- 
ment. Workers  in  wood  may  veneer  soft 
pine  with  thin  mahogany,  or  hide  the  pov- 
erty of  brick  walls  behind  thin  slabs  of  alabas- 
ter. But  real  beauty  is  an  interior  quality, 
striking  outward  and  manifest  upon  the 
surface.  When  the  sweet  babe  is  healthy 
within,  a  soft  bloom  appears  upon  the  cheek 
without.  When  ripeness  enters  the  heart  of 
54 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 

the  grape,  a  purple  flush  appears  upon  the 
surface  of  the  cluster.  Carry  the  rude 
speech  of  the  forest  child  up  to  beauty,  and 
it  becomes  the  musical  language  of  Xeno- 
phon.  Carry  the  rude  hut  of  a  savage  up 
to  beauty,  and  it  becomes  a  marble  house. 
Carry  the  stumbling  thought  of  a  slave  up 
to  beauty,  and  it  becomes  the  essay  of 
Epictetus.  But  beauty^  obeys  jhe  law_of 
sacrifice,  and  is  very  simple.  The  truly 
beautiful  column  stands  forth  a  single  mar- 
ble shaft.  The  most  perfect  capital  has  one 
adornment,  an  acanthus  leaf.  Is  Antigone 
or  Rosalind  to  dress  for  her  marriage-day? 
Let  her  wear  one  color — white — and  one 
flower  at  her  throat — a  sweet  briar.  Does 
some  Burns  or  Bryant,  standing  in  the  field 
of  blackberries,  meditate  a  poem,  let  him 
eat  for  the  flavor  one  berry,  no  more.  Does 
some  youth  aspire  to  perfect  prose,  let  him 
prune  away  all  high-sounding  phrases,  and 
instead  of  adorning  one  thought  in  ten 
glorious  sentences,  let  him  fill  his  ten  simple 
sentences  with  ten  great  thoughts.  Ours  is  a 
world  in  which  the  sweetest  song  is  the 
simplest. 

And   when   the  vestal  virgin   of   beauty 
55 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

has  adorned  the  temple  without,  it  asks 
the  artist  to  adorn  his  soul  with  thoughts, 
and  worship,  and  aspirations.  If  the  body 
lives  in  a  marble  house,  the  soul  should 
revolt  from  building  a  mud  hut.  The 
law  of  divine  beauty  asks  the  youth  to 
flee  from  unclean  thoughts  and  vulgar  pur- 
poses as  from  a  bog  or  a  foul  slough.  It 
bids  him  flee  from  irreverence,  vanity, 
and  selfishness  as  man  flees  from  some 
plague-smitten  village  or  a  filthy  garment. 
How  sweet  the  voice  of  beauty  that  whis- 
pers, "Seek  whatsoever  things  are  lovely, 
whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever 
things  are  virtuous,  whatsoever  things  are 
of  good  report/'  Having  doubled  the 
beauty  of  his  house,  having  doubled  the 
sweetness  of  his  music,  having  doubled  the 
wisdom  of  his  book,  man  should  also  double 
the  nobility  and  beauty  of  his  life,  making 
the  soul  within  as  glorious  as  a  temple  with- 
out. 

When  the  palace  or  temple  has  been 
founded  in  strength  and  crowned  with 
beauty,  the  law  of  remembrance  comes  in 
to  bid  men  guard  well  their  treasures.  This 
building  that  the  fathers  reared  out  of  their 
56 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 

thoughts,  their  gold,  their  aspirations  and 
worship,  is  theirs,  not  ours.  Rather  it  is 
ours  only  to  guard  and  enjoy,  not  to 
destroy  or  alter.  Our  Independence  Hall, 
England's  great  abbey,  Italy's  St.  Peter's, 
the  Parthenon  of  Athens,  these  are  not 
ours.  They  belong  partly  to  the  noble 
fathers  who  built  them  and  partly  to  the 
generations  that  shall  come  after  us.  What 
we  build  we  may  cast  down  or  change. 
But  their  illuminated  missals  and  books  are 
to  be  guarded  in  glass  cases  and  handed 
forward ;  their  immortal  frescoes  and  statues 
are  to  be  watched  as  we  watch  the  crown 
jewels  of  kings ;  the  doors  of  their  temples 
are  to  be  guarded  as  once  men  guarded  the 
gates  of  the  city.  Profane  indeed  the 
destroying  hands  lifted  upon  some  ancient 
marble,  or  picture,  or  bronze!  Sacred  for- 
ever the  steps  of  that  temple  worn  by  the 
feet  of  Pericles,  and  Plato,  and  Socrates! 
Sacred  the  temple  which  passed  the  seven 
good  emperors  of  Rome!  Sacred  that 
abbey  where  the  parliaments  of  kings  and 
churches  oft  did  meet !  Little  wonder  that 
men,  worn  and  weary  by  life's  fierce  strife, 
make  long  pilgrimages  to  the  Duomo  in 
57 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Florence,  or  the  great  square  in  Venice,  or 
to  that  marble  hall  in  Milan. *  Frederic 
Harrison  thinks  the  Parthenon  of  Phidias  is 
as  sacred  as  the  "Iliad"  of  Homer;  Giotto's 
tower  in  Florence  is  as  precious  as  the 
"Paradiso"  of  Dante;  the  abbey  of  England 
is  as  immortal  as  the  "Hamlet"  of  Shakes- 
peare. No  punishment  can  be  too  severe 
for  him  who  lifts  a  vandal's  hand  to  destroy 
these  treasure-houses  of  great  souls. 

And  then,  like  a  sweet  voice  falling  from 
the  sky,  come  the  words:  "Ye  are  the 
temple  of  God.  This  house  not  made  with 
hands  is  eternal  in  the  heavens."  He  who 
asks  men  to  guard  dead  statues  and  the 
decaying  canvas  will  himself  guard  and 
keep  in  immortal  remembrance  the  soul 
temple  of  the  dying  statesman,  and  hero,  and 
martyr.  If  Milton  says  that  "a  book  is  the 
precious  lifeblood  of  a  master  spirit  em- 
balmed and  treasured  up  on  purpose  for  a 
life  beyond  life,"  and  affirms  that  we  may 
' '  as  well  kill  a  man  as  kill  a  good  book, ' ' 
then  the  divine  voice  whispers  that  the 
soul  is  the  precious  life-temple  into  which 
three-score  years  and  ten  have  swept  their 

*  See  "  Sacredness  of  Ancient  Buildings." 
58 


Ruskin's  "Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture" 

thoughts,  and  dreams,  and  hopes,  and  pray- 
ers,  and  tears,  and  committed  all  this  treas- 
ure  into  the  hands  of  that  God  who  never 
slumbers  and  never  sleeps. 

Slowly  the  soul's  temple  rises.  Slowly 
reason  and  conscience  make  beautiful  the 
halls  of  imagination,  the  galleries  of  memory, 
the  chambers  of  affection.  When  success 
makes  the  colors  so  bright  as  to  dazzle, 
trouble  comes  in  to  soften  the  tints.  If 
adversity  lends  gloom  to  some  room  of 
memory,  hope  enters  to  lighten  the  dark 
lines.  For  character  is  a  structure  that 
rises  under  the  direction  of  a  divine  Master 
Builder.  Full  oft  a  divine  form  enters  the 
earthly  scene.  Thoughts  that  are  not  man's 
enter  his  mind.  Hopes  that  are  not  his,  like 
angels,  knock  at  his  door  to  aid  him  in  his 
work.  Even  death  is  no  "Vandal."  When 
the  body  hath  done  its  work,  death  pulls  the 
body  down,  as  Tintoretto,  toiling  upon  his 
ceiling,  pulled  down  his  scaffold  to  reveal  to 
men  a  ceiling  glorious  with  lustrous  beauty. 
At  the  gateway  of  ancient  Thebes  watchmen 
stood  to  guard  the  wicked  city.  Upon  the 
walls  of  bloody  Babylon  soldiers  walked  the 
long  night  through,  ever  keeping  the  towers 
59 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

where  tyranny  dwelt.  And  if  kings  think 
that  dead  stones  and  breathless  timbers  are 
worthy  of  guarding,  we  may  believe  that 
God  doth  set  keepers  to  guard  the  living 
city  of  man's  soul.  He  gives  His -angels 
charge  over  the  fallen  hero,  the  dying 
mother  and  the  sleeping  child.  He  will 
not  forget  His  dead.  Man's  soul  is  God's 
living  temple.  It  is  not  kept  by  earthly 
hands.  It  is  eternal  in  the  heavens. 


60 


Ill 

George  Eliot's  Tito,  in  "Romola" — A 
Study  of  the  Peril  of  Tampering  with 
Conscience  and  the  Gradual  Deteriora- 
tion of  Character 


You  talk  of  substantial  good,  Tito!  Are  faithful- 
ness, and  love,  and  sweet,  grateful  memories  no  good? 
Is  it  no  good  that  we  should  keep  our  silent  promises 
on  which  others  build  because  they  believe  in  our  love 
and  truth?  Is  it  no  good  that  a  just  life  should  be 
justly  honored?  Or,  is  it  good  that  we  should  harden 
our  hearts  against  all  the  wants  and  hopes  of  those 
who  have  depended  upon  us?  What  good  can  belong 
to  men  who  have  such  souls?  To  talk  cleverly,  per- 
haps, and  find  soft  couches  for  themselves,  and  live 
and  die  with  their  base  selves  as  their  best  compan- 
ions. It  is  only  a  poor  sort  of  happiness,  my  Lillo, 
that  could  ever  come  by  caring  very  much  about  our 
own  narrow  pleasures.  We  can  only  have  the  highest 
happiness,  such  as  goes  along  with  being  a  great  man, 
by  having  wide  thoughts,  and  much  feeling  for  the 
rest  of  the  world  as  well  as  ourselves;  and  this  sort  of 
happiness  often  brings  so  much  pain  with  it,  that  we 
can  only  tell  it  from  pain  by  its  being  what  we  would 
choose  before  everything  else,  because  our  souls  see 
it  is  good.  There  are  so  many  things  wrong  and  dif- 
ficult in  the  world,  that  no  man  can  be  great — he  can 
hardly  keep  himself  from  wickedness — unless  he 
gives  up  thinking  much  about  pleasure  or  rewards, 
and  gets  strength  to  endure  what  is  hard  and  painful. 
—  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  George  Eliot,  p.  /jy. 


Ill 

GEORGE  ELIOT'S  TITO,  IN  "ROMOLA"— A 
STUDY  OF  THE  PERIL  OF  TAMPERING 
WITH  CONSCIENCE  AND  THE  GRADUAL 
DETERIORATION  OF  CHARACTER 

Ever  since  King  David's  time,  when 
Nathan  used  his  story  of  the  ewe  larhb  to 
indict  the  guilty  monarch,  fiction  has  been 
one  of  life's  great  teachers.  He  who 
"spake  as  never  man  spake"  adopted  the 
parable  as  His  favorite  method  of  instruction. 
After  eighteen  centuries,  the  most  popular 
story  in  literature  is  Christ's  story  of  the 
prodigal  son,  a  story  that  has  fascinated 
the  generations,  softened  the  races,  and  will 
yet  win  a  wandering  world  back  to  its 
Father's  side.  If  the  Bible,  with  its  para- 
bles, is  the  book  best  loved  by  men,  next  to 
it  stands  "Pilgrim's  Progress, "  more  widely 
read  than  any  other  human  book.  If  "Les 
Miserables"  exhibits  the  evolution  of  con- 
science, "Wilhelm  Meister,"  the  evolution 
63 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

of  intellect,  and  "The  Scarlet  Letter/' 
the  evolution  of  [pain  and  penalty,  the 
theme  of  "Romola"  is  the  evolution  of  sin, 
the  peril  of  tampering  with  conscience  and 
the  gradual  deterioration  of  character.  In 
this  volume  George  Eliot  stands  forth  the 
historian  of  the  soul,  and  tells  the  story  of 
its  decline  and  fall.  At  the  beginning  of 
his  career  the  beautiful  boy  Tito  was 
crowned  with  innocence  and  purity,  but  at 
last  he  stood  forth  covered  with  infamy  and 
shame  as  with  garments  of  pollution. 

Consider  the  youth  who  enters  the  scene 
with  all  the  promise  of  a  coming  hero  and 
passes  from  our  sight  a  full-blown  villain. 
Early  one  morning  a  Florentine  merchant, 
passing  through  a  street  that  Dante  loved, 
found  a  young  Greek  lying  asleep  in  the 
portico  of  an  old  church.  An  hour  later 
the  merchant,  conversing  with  his  clerk, 
described  the  boy,  with  his  broad,  straight 
forehead,  his  youthful  face  infused  with 
rich  young  blood,  his  dark,  soft,  velvety 
eyes,  as  needing  only  a  myrtle  wreath  about 
his  curls  to  make  him  a  young  Bacchus,  or 
rather  a  gifted  Apollo.  But  Tito's  bright 
face  and  the  richly  tinted  beauty  that  lent 
64 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

his  face  the  radiance  of  a  sunny  morning 
were  the  least  of  his  gifts.  His,  also,  was  an 
intellect  keen  indeed,  and  wit  that  flashed 
like  a  two-edged  sword.  His,  too,  the  gift 
of  humor,  and  that  gurgling  laughter  and 
mirth  that  are  contagious  and  make  their 
possessor  the  radiant  center  of  every  social 
circle. 

Fascinating  indeed  the  history  of  this 
youth,  who  made  his  history  a  tragedy. 
Very  early  in  life  he  was  left  an  orphan,  and 
fell  upon  filth,  beggary,  and  cruel  wrong. 
By  some  unknown  means  a  traveling  min- 
strel gained  possession  of  the  child,  and 
made  his  living  from  the  boy's  sweet  voice. 
Unfortunately,  his  master  was  drunken  and 
cruel,  and  oft  gave  the  child  blows  and  bit- 
terness. One  day  when  Baldassarre  was 
crossing  the  market-place  he  was  moved  by 
the  child's  pathetic  sorrow.  Rescuing  him 
from  brutal  kicks,  he  brought  Tito  to  a 
home  that  seemed  like  paradise.  Lonely 
and  long  unloved,  the  father  poured  out 
for  orphaned  Tito  the  full  tides  of  a  heart 
stored  with  an  inexhaustible  treasure.  Ful- 
filling a  career  of  caresses  and  comforts, 
the  child's  life  blossomed  and  passed 
65 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

swiftly  into  a  youth  crowned  with  splendid 
grace. 

But  moving  along  the  streets  of  the 
Grecian  city,  the  youth  could  never  forget 
that  some  there  were  who  once  had  known 
him  as  a  minstrel  child  dwelling  in  want 
and  beggary.  This  touched  his  pride.  In 
such  hours  he  urged  his  father  to  sell  all 
his  goods  and  take  him  to  Italy,  where  he 
might  pass  as  his  benefactor's  son.  For 
even  in  childhood  Tito  was  selfish.  Oft 
had  he  refused  his  father's  wishes,  but  re- 
fused with  such  charming,  half-smiling,  and 
pleading  good  nature  that  the  mere  pleasure 
of  looking  at  him  made  amends  to  his  bene- 
factor and  robbed  the  selfish  boy's  refusal 
of  half  its  poison.  In  his  selfishness  it 
seemed  as  nothing  to  the  youth  that  he  was 
asking  his  father  to  leave  the  city  of  his 
fathers,  the  house  where  he  was  born,  the 
villa  with  its  graves  upon  the  hillside.  But 
the  youth  had  set  his  heart  upon  going,  and 
sought  ever  to  sunder  the  cords  that  bound 
the  man  to  his  old  home.  One  night,  over- 
persuaded,  the  father  came  home  to  say 
that  he  had  turned  all  his  goods  into  the 
form  of  gold  and  gems,  making  ready  for 
66 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

the  hour  when  he  would  turn  forever  from 
his  native  land.  One  promise  alone  he  ex- 
acted from  the  youth — that  when  death 
came,  as  come  it  must,  Tito  would  bring 
him  back  to  sleep  beside  his  fathers.  But 
scarcely  had  the  ship  that  was  to  bear  the 
pilgrims  into  Italy  passed  into  the  open  sea 
when  disaster  overtook  the  travelers.  In 
the  excitement  of  the  shipwreck  father  and 
son  were  separated.  Unfortunately,  the 
boat  that  saved  the  older  man  from  drown- 
ing fell  into  the  hands  of  pirates ;  while  Tito, 
after  a  night  of  peril  and  clinging  to  a 
broken  spar,  was  picked  up  by  a  vessel  that 
landed  him  in  Florence.  Thus  for  a  second 
time  Providence  had  granted  a  marvelous 
deliverance.  Having  passed  from  a  beg- 
gar's hut  to  a  merchant's  palace,  the  youth 
now  exchanged  drowning,  or  what  was 
worse,  a  Turkish  slave  market,  for  that  city 
of  splendor  and  romance  that  had  been  the 
Mecca  of  his  dreams.  By  two  deliverances, 
therefore,  Providence  had,  as  it  were,  placed 
him  under  bonds.  God  had  sworn  Tito 
to  a  life  of  service,  self-sacrifice,  and  noble 
generosity. 

But  when  this  buoyant  youth,  who  had 
67 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

known  such  romantic  adventures,  found 
himself  in  the  city  Dante  loved,  he  fell 
into  a  grievous  temptation.  His  bright 
face,  easy  smile,  and  liquid  voice  won 
friends,  and  swift  advancement  stirred  high 
hopes  in  the  ambitious  boy.  Among  the 
events  of  his  first  week  in  Florence  were  an 
opportunity  of  teaching  Greek  to  the  sons 
of  a  rich  family,  an  invitation  to  become 
secretary  in  the  Scala  palace,  and  a  request 
to  serve  as  librarian  for  a  blind  scholar,  one 
Bardo  de  Bardi.  Lest  these  new  friends 
should  misunderstand  his  buoyant  spirits,  he 
said  nothing  of  his  father's  peril.  In  his 
heart  he  told  himself  that  after  he  had  sold 
the  gems  he  would  probably  begin  the  search 
for  his  benefactor.  But  when  a  week  had 
passed  by,  and  he  had  kept  his  guilty  secret, 
something  whispered  that  should  his  new 
friends  now  discover  his  shameful  selfish 
ness,  they  would  despise  him  for  not  hav- 
ing gone  at  once  to  the  ruler  of  the  city  to 
tell  him  that  his  father  had  been  seized  by 
pirates  and  was  even  now,  under  the  sum- 
mer sun,  "toiling  as  a  slave,  hewing  wood 
and  carrying  water,  perhaps  being  smitten 
because  he  was  not  deft  and  active/'  and 
68 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

invoke  the  ruler's  aid  to  help  free  his  bene- 
factor. But  Tito  justified  himself  by  the 
thought  that  even  if  he  did  start  forth  to 
visit  the  archipelago  he  might  suffer  a  second 
shipwreck  or  be  himself  seized  by  piratess 
and  so  have  no  means  to  support  his  father 
should  the  old  man  finally  be  discovered. 
Doubtless  Baldassarre  was  even  now  dead. 

Tito  had  indeed  known  of  instances  where 
relatives  had  gone  to  crowned  and  mitered 
heads  for  aid  in  freeing  friends  from  the 
horrors  of  Turkish  slavery,  but  these  were 
all  persons  of  great  wealth.  Perhaps,  also, 
Baldassarre' s  absence  was  a  relief.  Of  late 
the  heavy-browed,  eagle-eyed  old  man  had 
grown  wearisome  and  exacting.  Indeed,  the 
very  thought  of  Calvo's  coming  to  Florence 
to  be  with  him  sent  a  shudder  through 
Tito's  frame,  and  he  felt  that  the  old  man 
would  be  a  weight  and  clog.  All  the 
chances  were  that  he  was  dead,  but  should 
events  recover  him  to  life  Tito  would  need 
his  money  to  support  his  benefactor.  Fate 
therefore  seemed  to  have  decided  that  it 
was  best  for  Baldassarre  to  end  his  career 
by  shipwreck  and  death.  What  fate  had 
decided  fate  would  achieve.  Therefore 
69 


CH 

felWIUFOQITV 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Tito  bowed  his  will  to  the  inevitable.  He 
invested  the  five  hundred  florins  obtained 
by  selling  his  father's  gems  with  Cennini. 
He  determined  to  do  nothing,  and  speak  of 
his  father  as  iost.  In  that  sad  hour  Tito 
sold  himself  to  the  prince  of  evil. 

If  the  next  two  months  sufficed  to  lend  a 
golden  hue  to  the  harvest  fields  and  a  pur- 
ple cast  to  the  vineyards,  these  summer 
months  showed  no  other  change  upon  Tito 
than  that  "  added  radiance  of  good  fortune 
which  is  like  the  just  perceptible  perfecting 
of  a  flower  after  it  has  drunk  the  morning 
sunbeams/'  The  youth  who  had  landed 
with  weather-stained  tunic  and  hose  found 
himself  a  growing  influence  among  the 
leaders  of  Florence.  Passing  through  the 
streets,  his  highest  hopes  were  stirred  by 
the  cordial  salutations  of  merchants  and 
politicians  and  the  grave  recognition  of  sen- 
ators and  bishops.  But  the  springs  of  his 
hope  grew  deeper  still.  Among  the  old 
patrician  families,  who  suffered  grievously 
from  recent  wars  and  had  exchanged  wealth 
and  dignity  for  what  seemed  poverty  to  them, 
was  Bardo  de  Bardi,  who  had  commenced 
his  career  as  a  merchant,  but  in  early  life 
70 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

had  become  fascinated  by  the  new  Greek 
learning,  and  so  had  spent  his  years  in  the 
collection  of  rare  manuscripts  and  precious 
marbles,  gathering  literary  treasures  so  rich 
as  to  encourage  the  hope  that  he  had  made 
"a  lasting  impression  upon  the  fast-whirling 
earth."  From  the  hour  when  Tito,  with 
his  knowledge  of  the  classics,  entered  his 
library,  the  blind  scholar  felt  that  at  last  he 
had  found  a  secretary  who  could  help  him 
perfect  a  catalogue  for  these  books  that  were 
to  form  his  final  monument.  But  to  Tito 
the  rolls  and  manuscripts,  precious  as  they 
were,  seemed  as  nothing  in  comparison  with 
that  Romola  who  was  indeed  the  most  beau- 
tiful girl  in  Florence,  and  had  been  to  the 
blind  scholar  "a  light  in  time  of  darkness." 
In  those  happy  days  oft  the  young  Greek 
lingered  in  the  library  until  darkness  lay 
upon  all  the  books,  and  his  handsome  face, 
his  radiant  spirits,  his  gentle,  beseeching 
admiration,  soon  won  the  heart  of  this 
proud,  shy  girl.  In  the  hour  of  approach- 
ing marriage  Tito  could  scarcely  believe  his 
own  good  fortune.  Events  had  fulfilled  his 
highest  hopes. 

And  when  marriage  had  lent  him  patrician 

7' 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

position,  by  chance  Tito  discovered  a  polit- 
ical conspiracy.  Soon  an  opportunity  to  ful- 
fill a  secret  commission  for  the  conspirators 
filled  his  purse  with  gold.  Later  his  guilty 
knowledge  made  it  necessary  for  the  polit- 
ical leaders  to  widen  their  circle  and  find  a 
place  for  Tito.  Soon  he  was  a  familiar  figure 
in  all  the  palaces.  Daily  death  vacates  one 
great  man's  chair.  Tito  waited  his  chance, 
and  then,  with  a  single  bound,  leaped  into 
fame  and  fortune.  Because  he  was  not 
embarrassed  by  conscience,  he  soon  became 
invaluable  to  the  conspirators  against  the 
state. 

But  just  in  the  brightest  hour  of  his  new 
career  the  shadow  of  Nemesis  fell  dark 
across  his  path.  One  morning,  while  cross- 
ing the  square,  Tito  met  a  monk,  newly 
arrived  from  Sicily.  Having  inquired  his 
name,  the  stranger  gave  Tito  a  packet  upon 
which  was  written,  "For  Tito  Melema,  age 
twenty-three,  with  a  dark,  beautiful  face, 
long,  dark  curls,  the  brightest  smile,  and 
a  large  onyx  ring  on  his  right  forefinger.0 
Opening  the  parchment,  Tito  read  these 
words:  "I  am  sold  for  a  slave.  They  are 
going  to  take  me  to  Antioch.  » The  gems 
73 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

alone  will  ransom  me."  In  that  moment 
of  judgment  Tito's  terror  was  increased  by 
the  discovery  that  this  monk  was  Fra  Luca, 
brother  to  his  Romola.  Shivering  for  fear, 
he  cast  about  for  help.  The  moment  was 
big  with  peril.  There  was  indeed  the  barest 
chance  that  Fra  Luca  did  not  know  the  con- 
tents of  the  message ;  also  the  sickness  that 
was  upon  the  monk  might  prove  fatal.  On 
the  other  hand,  even  though  his  father  was 
alive,  it  was  too  late  to  sail  for  Antioch. 
Baldassarre  had  had  his  draught  of  life.  Tito 
felt  that  his  turn  had  come.  Now  that  the 
cup  of  joy  was  at  his  lips  it  was  unfair  to 
put  it  away  and  go  through  life  ever  thirst- 
ing. Of  course  the  five  hundred  florins 
belonged  to  Baldassarre,  nor  did  he  wish 
them  for  himself,  but  only  for  Romola. 
When  darkness  fell,  his  terror  increased,  and 
fulfilled  ^Eschylus'  words,  "It  is  good  that 
fear  should  sit  as  a  guardian  of  the  soul, 
forcing  it  into  wisdom." 

Since  sleep  was  impossible,  and  he  could 
not  know  the  result  of  Romola's  inter- 
view with  her  brother  until  morning,  and 
having  an  unconquerable  aversion  to  un- 
pleasant thoughts,  Tito  sprang  up,  and, 
73 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

walking  through  the  streets,  left  the  city 
behind  him.  He  was  in  one  of  those  law- 
less moments  when  the  soul  has  no  guide 
but  desire.  Also  the  face  of  a  little  peasant 
girl  whom  he  had  met  in  the  market-place 
rose  before  him.  He  determined  to  use  the 
evening  when  his  fate  hung  in  the  balance 
by  amusing  himself  with  his  new  acquaint- 
ance. That  night  for  little  Tessa  the  flowers 
of  the  soul  withered  upon  their  branches.  All 
the  barriers  that  protect  virtue  fell  in  ruins. 
Returning  home,  Tito  reflected  that  in  any 
event  Romola  would  probably  soon  break 
with  him.  But  perfect  scheming  demands 
omniscience.  When  the  new  day  dawned 
he  found  that  Fra  Luca  was  dead,  and  had 
carried  the  guilty  secret  with  him  to  the 
grave.  Not  dreaming  of  Tito's  unfaithful- 
ness, Romola  met  him  with  sweet  abandon 
of  love.  Sorrow  had  clothed  her  with  divine 
dignity,  sweetness,  and  beauty.  Suddenly 
Tito's  spirit  rebounded  from  the  dread  unto 
joy  as  a  lithe,  soft-furred  young  tiger  leaps 
in  its  play.  At  once  he  put  far  away  all 
fear.  But  as  the  days  swept  on  this  youth, 
who  at  the  beginning  was  merely  weak, 
moved  swiftly  toward  shame  and  infamy. 
74 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

Had  some  keen  observer  been  blessed  with 
the  power  to  pierce  through  his  outer  dis- 
guise, he  would  have  seen  that  this  soft  and 
beautiful  body  was  a  velvet  sheath  that  con- 
cealed the  black  heart  of  a  scoundrel.  Daily 
this  youth  picked  some  of  the  ripe  fruit  of 
ease  and  prosperity.  Nevertheless,  God  is 
just.  Sins  are  seeds  that  carry  in  them- 
selves harvests  of  coming  punishment. 

But  the  wise  man  saith,  "Sins  are  like 
lions'  cubs,  and  lions'  whelps  do  grow  and 
increase."  So  it  happened  that  when 
months  had  passed  Tito  found  his  sin  was  a 
wild  beast  crouching  at  his  door.  One 
day,  making  his  way  into  the  center  of  an 
excited  crowd,  he  found  himself  face  to  face 
with  his  adopted  father.  Fascinated  and 
full  of  terror,  the  two  men  glared  into  each 
other's  eyes,  silent  as  death.  Baldassarre's 
face  was  full  of  fury;  Tito's  white  lips  were 
bloodless  and  trembling.  When  an  officer 
laid  his  hand  upon  the  old  man  and  ex- 
claimed, "Who  is  this?"  Tito's  passion 
leaped  forth  under  the  inspiration  of  crime, 
and  he  answered,  "Some  madman,  surely!" 
Transfixed  by  that  word,  Baldassarre  started 
with  pain.  A  magical  passion  seemed  to 
/5 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

leap  from  his  eyes  and  to  dart  into  the 
veins  of  Tito.  But:  when  the  old  man  had 
gone,  the  youth  quickly  recovered  himself, 
for  he  had  "lips  that  could  lie  with  dimpled 
smiles,  eyes  whose  brightness  infamy  could 
not  dim,  cheeks  that  could  rise  from  murder 
and  not  look  haggard."  When  his 'com- 
panions railed  him  for  looking  as  if  he  had 
seen  a  ghost,  he  excused  himself  and 
plunged  into  a  secluded  street.  He  felt  as 
if  "a  serpent  had  begun  to  coil  about  his 
limbs/'  Baldassarre,  living  and  in  Flor- 
ence, seemed  to  him  the  incarnation  of 
vengeance.  With  bitterness  he  recalled  that 
if  he  had  but  thrown  himself  into  his  father's 
arms  one  well-turned  falsehood  might  have 
brought  him  through  the  crisis.  But  that 
word,  "He  is  a  madman,"  had  revealed 
everything  to  Baldassarre.  One  resource 
was  indeed  possible — to  turn  back,  to  con- 
fess all  to  his  father,  to  Romola,  to  all  the 
world.  Yet  sin  had  so  deadened  his  con- 
science that  he  never  even  thought  of  that. 
Not  until  weeks  had  passed  did  he  under- 
stand why  Baldassarre  had  delayed  his 
vengeance.  The  old  man  was  waiting  for 
an  hour  of  publicity,  when  this  traitor,  this 
76 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

hated  favorite  of  blind  fortune,  was  sur- 
rounded by  chief  men,  on  whose  favor  he 
depended.  One  evening  Tito  was  the  guest 
of  honor  at  Rucellai's  palace.  At  the  mo- 
ment when  the  festivities  were  at  their  height 
Baldassarre  suddenly  entered  the  room. 
When  Tito  turned  pale  and  trembled,  the 
silence  of  death  fell  upon  all.  Baldassarre 
said:  "There  is  a  man  here  who  is  a  scoun- 
drel, a  liar,  a  robber.  I  took  him  from 
beggary  when  he  was  a  child.  I  was  a 
father  to  him.  I  made  him  a  scholar.  My 
head  has  lain  hard  that  he  might  have  a 
pillow.  Shipwrecked,  he  left  me  in  slavery. 
He  sold  my  gems,  and  when  I  came  he 
denied  me."  Amazed,  doubting,  bewil- 
dered, the  guests  looked  from  Baldassarre  to 
Tito,  not  knowing  this  end.  But  the  ex- 
citement was  too  much  for  the  old  man. 
Broken-hearted,  now  the  strings  of  his  mind 
also  snapped.  A  moment  later  all  memory 
passed  from  him.  Servants  led  him  away. 
Then  the  banqueters  expressed  sympathy 
with  Tito  that  this  crazy  old  man  had 
fastened  his  hatred  upon  one  so  innocent. 
But  if  the  banquet  went  on,  Tito's  heart 
was  palpitating.  The  wine  tasted  no  better 
77 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

"than  if  it  had  been  blood/'  For  safety  he 
had  paid  a  heavy  price.  That  night  Tito 
trembled,  and  felt  that  the  stars  blazed 
anger  at  him.  The  earth  had  become  dust, 
and  the  heavens  were  iron  and  brass.  He 
was  now  an  exile  from  Eden.  Angels  with 
swords  of  flame  kept  the  gates  of  Paradise 
against  him. 

Yet  night  and  sleep  recovered  Tito's  old- 
time  caution  and  coolness.  If  all  else  failed, 
flight  at  least  was  left.  Of  late,  indeed, 
events  had  not  gone  well  with  Tito. 
Always  of  extravagant  tastes,  his  expenses 
were  heavy,  and  the  peasant  girl  and  her 
two  babes  had  cost  him  much  money. 
Flight  to  Venice  or  Paris  meant  increased 
expenditure.  Then  it  was  that  the  man 
bethought  himself  of  Romola's  father's 
library.  At  first  the  very  thought  of 
treachery  to  the  dead  filled  him  with  sick- 
ening terror.  For  half  a  century  the  scholar 
had  used  the  fruit  of  his  toil  to  collect 
these  manuscripts  and  parchments.  Only  a 
few  weeks  before  the  cardinal  had  promised 
a  building  in  which  the  collection  might  be 
preserved,  thus  handing  forward  the  name 
of  Bardo  de  Bardi.  Grievous  necessity  was 
18 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

upon  Tito.  Finding  he  had  a  legal  right  to 
sell  the  books,  he  at  once  arranged  with 
the  agent  of  the  Duke  of  Milan  to  visit 
the  library  in  Romola's  absence. 

That  night  he  asked  the  young  wife  what 
possible  good  those  rolls  and  books  could 
do  if  kept  in  one  building  under  her  father's 
name  more  than  if  divided.  Scattered 
through  various  cities  would  they  not  bring 
light  and  inspiration  to  many  people? 
When  the  Grecian  scholars  with  their  manu- 
scripts fled  before  the  /Turks,  was  not  the 
loss  of  Constantinople  the  gain  of  the  whole 
world?  An  hour  later  Romola  knew  that 
the  library  had  already  been  sold  to  the 
Duke  of  Milan,  and  that  Tito  had  broken 
the  solemn  pledge  made  to  her  dying  father. 
In  that  moment  the  rich,  warm  blood  in  her 
veins  turned  to  molten  steel.  Her  love, 
too,  died  forever.  Affection  was  succeeded 
by  hatred  and  contempt.  When  the  morn- 
ing dawned  over  the  city  the  young  wife 
knew  that  her  life,  that  had  seemed  a  beau- 
teous temple  for  happiness  and  peace,  had 
become  a  ruined  heap.  He  who  had  entered 
her  life  as  an  angel  of  light  now  stood  forth 
a  demon,  clothed  with  shame  and  infamy. 
79 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

And  now  this  man  who  had  become  a 
traitor  to  his  home  becomes  a  traitor  to  his 
country.  The  youth  who  at  the  outset 
would  have  stepped  aside  from  the  path 
lest  he  hurt  a  young  bird  was  now  capable 
of  treading  the  breath  from  a  smiling  child 
for  the  sake  of  his  own  safety.  His  was  the 
"sharp  mind  in  a  velvet  sheath,**  and  his 
also  the  iron  heart  to  wield  the  keen  blade. 
Since  Romola  chose  to  assume  an  air  of 
lofty  superiority,  with  sneers,  he  decided  to 
abandon  her  and  flee  to  some  unknown  city 
where  he  might  forget  the  past  and  begin 
life  afresh.  If  flight  demanded  a  long 
purse,  opportunity  offered  a  way  for  filling 
his  purse  with  gold.  His  long  and  close 
acquaintance  with  Romola's  uncle  made 
him  the  possessor  of  Nello's  hope  of  seeing 
the  liberty  of  Florence  restored.  Going 
before  the  prince  he  sold  the  information 
that  brought  several  patriots  to  their  death 
and  lined  his  belt  with  gold  and  gems.  But  if 
his  falsehood  prospered,  his  fear  waxed  also, 
for  fear  had  become  a  habit  with  him.  Not 
that  he  feared  Baldassarre,  for  confessedly 
the  old  man  was  crazy.  Not  that  he  feared 
Romola's  suspicion,  for  she  knew  all  his 
80 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

treachery.  The  scaffold,  too,  had  silenced 
Nello's  lips  forever.  From  habit  Tito  now 
was  the  slave  of  terror. 

One  night,  returning  home,  he  found 
rioting  going  on  in  the  street,  and  heard 
the  roar  of  the  mob  that  was  preparing  to 
attack  San  Marco.  At  once  he  made  his 
preparations  for  flight.  When  the  morning 
came,  Tito  descended  the  steps  looking 
nearly  as  brilliant  as  the  day  he  had  crossed 
that  threshold  to  meet  Romola.  The 
thought  of  his  old  life  was  now  cast  off,  and 
that  he  was  about  to  enter  a  new  one  lent  him 
strange  excitement.  He  was  to  meet  his  man 
and  the  mules  beyond  the  Ponte  Vecchio. 
Hurrying  to  the  bridge,  he  saw  the  streets 
thereabout  filled  with  rioters.  It  was  vexa- 
tious, but  he  must  make  his  way  through 
the  mob.  Once  on  the  bridge,  he  found 
himself  surrounded  by  a  group  of  men  whom 
he  recognized  as  friends  of  the  senators  he 
had  betrayed.  In  a  sudden  flash  he  knew 
that  these  angry  men  were  about  to  avenge 
their  friends,  slain  through  his  treachery. 
At  sight  of  Tito  their  angry  yells  and  exe- 
crations increased.  Plainly  death  was  just 
at  hand.  In  a  moment  his  hat  was  off,  his 
81 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

mantle  torn  in  shreds.  Suddenly  Tito 
drew  forth  his  purse,  and  scattering  the 
gold  and  gems,  took  advantage  of  the 
open  space  and  leaped  from  the  bridge 
into  the  Arno  below.  Once  before  his 
fine  swimming  had  saved  his  life.  Diving 
under  the  water,  the  youth  hoped  that  the 
crowd  would  think  him  drowned.  If  he 
could  but  swim  beyond  the  bridges,  there 
was  still  a  chance  of  life.  On  and  on  he 
swam,  passing  one  bridge  after  another, 
until  he  was  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 
But  excitement  had  spent  his  strength,  and 
he  had  been  up  all  the  night  before.  The 
current  now  began  to  have  its  way  with 
him.  Scarcely  conscious,  his  feet  felt  the 
shore.  But  unwittingly  the  swimmer  was 
not  alone.  One  onlooker  had  seen  Tito 
spring  into  the  river — Baldassarre,  his 
avenger.  The  old  man  was  on  the  bank, 
keeping  pace  with  the  swimmer,  and  when 
at  last  Tito  approached  the  reeds  and  fell, 
half  fainting,  among  the  rushes,  Baldassarre 
leaped  like  a  tiger  upon  the  unconscious 
youth. 

When  the  swimmer's  eyes  opened  and  the 
light  of  consciousness  vibrated  in  them,  he 
82 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

looked  into  the  eyes  of  Baldassarre,  but  he 
knew  not  whether  it  was  life  or  death  that 
brought  him  into  the  presence  of  his  father. 
In  that  moment  of  recognition  the  remnant 
of  strength  in  the  old  man  leaped  into  flame. 
Kneeling  upon  the  youth,  he  clutched  his 
throat  tighter  and  tighter.  Long  after  the 
eyes  had  become  rigid  and  the  flesh  cold  the 
avenger  was  still  there,  not  daring  to  trust 
this  seeming  death.  Many  hours  later  a 
peasant  saw  a  startling  object  lying  upon 
the  river's  bank.  The  aged  man  had  fallen 
forward,  his  dead  clutch  still  upon  the 
other's  throat.  It  was  not  possible  to  sep- 
arate them,  so  the  two  bodies,  now  united 
by  hate  and  vengeance  as  once  by  love, 
were  carried  back  to  the  great  piazza  for 
identification.  "It  is  the  prisoner  who. 
clutched  Tito  and  convulsed  him  with  ter-  v 
ror,"  said  Piero.  "It  is  the  old  man  who 
appeared  at  my  banquet,"  said  Rucellai. 
Not  so.  Those  fingers  upon  the  throat  of 
Tito  were  the  fingers  of  Eternal  Justice. 
For  justice  is  like  "the  kingdom  of  God  —  it 
is  iiotj\dtk<ttrtr-Trs  as  a  fact  ;  it  is  within  us 
as 


Since  Tito's  time,  centuries  have   come 
83 


Great  Books  as  Life  -Teachers 

and  gone.  The  house  of  the  De  Bardi  is 
no  longer  known  in  Florence.  The  old 
booths  are  now  in  ruins.  But  could  these 
tombs  that  hold  the  sacred  dust  of  the  blind 
scholar  and  his  beautiful  daughter  give  up 
their  dead  ;  could  the  martyred  lips  of  Savo- 
narola again  break  forth  in  speech,  these 
would  have  one  message  and  one  warning: 
we  knew  a  youth  once  who  was  bright,  and 
beautiful,  and  full  of  promise.  So  kind  was 
he  and  gentle  that  at  first  the  mere  thought 
of  cruelty  made  him  ill.  -But  because  he 
tried  to  slip  out^of_everyih]ng  unpleasant, 
and  always  chose  the  selfish  path,  he  came 
to  do  deeds~15Iack  and^nTamous^.  For  the 
mere  hope  of  becoming  rich  and  prosperous, 
he  was  TaifEIess  to  "every  trust.  Yet  what 
he  sowed  he  reaped.  He  sowed  treachery 
toward  his  city,  and  reaped  the  anger  of  the 

rd  his  home, 
of  a  noble  wife. 


Hesoa&ed-  ingi'atiturte~Towarct   his  father, 
and  reqp^d-^Jhatr^rl  that  rooked  out  his  life. 
ThereforeT   beware  o£~~feke—  beginnings  of 
evil,  —  Once  disease  hath  wiped  the  bloom  of 
health  and  beauty  from  the  cheeks  of  youth, 
the  blush  can  never  be  restored. 
84 


George  Eliot's  "Romola" 

Tamper  not  ,.wjth_  conscience ;  it  is  the 
soul's  compass.  Reflect  that  the  little 
sins  that  seem  to-day  like  the  soft  balls  of 
fur,  named  lions'  cubs,  fit  for  playthings, 
will  to-morrow  be  wild  beasts  crouching  at 
thy  door.  And  if  passion  leaping  from 
its  lair  hath  overcome  *thee,  make  instant 
confession,  that  the  soul  may  recover  its 
purity.  For  man  may  be  born  again.  Christ's 
love  and  life  and  death  can  consume  the 
soul's  transgression.  God's  mercy  can  for- 
give. His  deep  seas  can  bury  forever  sins 

forever  forsaken. But  if  trifling  sins  oft 

repeate.d_Jiav€— seared  lhy-cm*science,  then 
beware!  Beware!  Beware!  A  thousand 
times  beware !  if  sin  no  longer  cuts  a  deep, 
bloody  gash  in  thy  heart!  Whatsoever  a 
man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap^_ ' '  For 
God^wiif^Bnngevery  word  into  judgment, 
with  every  secret  thing,  whether  it  be  good 
or  whetheFlt  be  evil, ' ' 


IV 

Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter"  and  the 
Retributive  Workings  of  Conscience — 
A  Study  of  the  Necessity  and  Nobility 
of  Repentance,  and  the  Confession  of 
Sin 


There  can  be,  if  I  forebode  aright,  no  power,  short 
of  the  Divine  mercy,  to  disclose,  whether  by  uttered 
words  or  by  type  or  emblem,  the  secrets  that  may  be 
buried  with  a  human  heart.  The  heart,  making  itself 
guilty  of  such  secrets,  must  perforce  hold  them,  until 
the  day  when  all  hidden  things  shall  be  revealed. 
Nor  have  I  so  read  or  interpreted  Holy  Writ  as  to 
understand  the  disclosure  of  human  thoughts  and 
deeds,  then  to  be  made,  is  intended  as  a  part  of  the 
retribution.  That,  surely,  were  a  shallow  view  of  it. 
No;  these  revelations,  unless  I  greatly  err,  are  meant 
merely  to  promote  the  intellectual  satisfaction  of  all 
intelligent  beings,  who  will  stand  waiting,  on  that 
day,  to  see  the  dark  problem  of  this  life  made  plain. 
A  knowledge  of  men's  hearts  will  be  needful  to  the 
completest  solution  of  that  problem.  And  I  conceive, 
moreover,  that  the  hearts  holding  such  miserable 
secrets  as  you  speak  of  will  yield  them  up,  at  that 
last  day,  not  with  reluctance,  but  with  a  joy  unutter- 
able.— Scarlet  Letter,  p.  161. 


IV 

HAWTHORNE'S    * 'SCARLET   LETTER*  '  AND 
THE  RETRIBUTIVE  WORKINGS  OF  CON- 
SCIENCE— A  STUDY  OF  THE..NECESSITy 
)  NOBILITY  OF  REPENTANCE,  AND 
THE  ^CONFESSION  OF  SIN 

.Conceding  preeminency  in  morals  and 
reason  to  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  peoples, 
giving  the  first  place  in  law  and  philosophy 
to  the  Latin  and  German  races,  let  us  also 
confess  that  England  holds  a  unique  posi- 
tion in  the  realm  of  literature.  In  the  his- 
tory of  letters  the  names  most  illustrious, 
perhaps,  are  names  of  English  origin.  If 
the  critics  mention  three  poets  of  the  first 
order — Homer,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare — 
the  greatest  of  these  is  the  bard  of  Avon.. 
If  scholars  make  a  second  group  for  ^Eschy- 
lus,  Virgil,  Milton,  and  Goethe,  the  Eng- 
lish poet  easily  heads  this  list.  If  German 
thinkers  are  preeminent  in  the  realm  of 
modern  philosophy,  it  was  Francis  Bacon 
89 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

who  developed  the  principles  of  the  induc- 
tive system.  In  the  material  world, 
nations  from  time  to  time  exhibit  their 
tools,  art,  and  industries.  Should  an  era 
ever  come  when  the  great  races  hold  an 
exposition  of  genius,  and  display  the 
achievements  of  their  poets,  essayists,  and 
scientists,  the  English  exhibit  will  ask  for  a 
large  and  generous  section,  while  Amer- 
ica's contribution  will  need  but  a  modest 
corner.  In  this  court  of  honor,  Emerson 
the  essayist,  Lowell  the  scholar,  and  Long- 
fellow the  poet,  Motley  the  historian,  and 
Hawthorne  the  novelist,  will  doubtless 
obtain  recognition  and  high  praise.  Con- 
fessedly, from  the  view-point  of  fiction,  the 
author  of  "The  Scarlet  Letter "  is  the  first 
of  American  authors,  and  takes  high  rank 
among  the  ten  great  novelists.  Renowned 
as  a  literary  artist,  he  is  also  unique  as  a 
teacher  of  morals.  /  His  one  theme,  never 
forgotten  and  always  insisted  upon,  is  con- 
science  and  the  retributive  workings 

j.*cfenr 

In  the  "House  of  Seven  Gables/'   Haw- 
thorne  exhibits   one   generation   as  sowing 
sins  that  are  seeds  whose  harvests  of  penalty 
90 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

are  garnered  by  generations  that  follow 
after.  In  the  "  Marble  Faun,"  he  portrays 
Donatello  as  "less  man  than  child,  less 
child  than  animal,"  who  seems  a  youth 
buoyant  and  mirthful,  as  unconscious  as  a 
big-eyed  fawn  in  the  forest,  whose  con- 
science, through  sin  and  crime,  at  last 
rouses  the  youth  into  self-recognition  and 
full  manhood.  In  his  "SeptimiusFelton," 
Hawthorne  suggests  that  sins  may  have 
consequences  that  reach  forward  unto  im- 
mortality. When  a  scientist  has  slain  his 
friend,  influenced  in  part  by  remorse,  he 
returns  to  the  spot,  to  find  upon  the  grave 
a  plant  with  blossoms,  crimson  and  gorgeous 
beyond  words,  having  leaves  heavy  with 
potent  juices,  from  which  he  distilled  an 
elixir  of  immortal  life,  only  to  find  himself 
immortal  in  woe,  agony,  and  remorse. 
V  For,  like  all  minds  of  the  first  order  of 
;  genius,  Hawthorne  concerns  himself  with 
the  great  problems  of  the  soul.)  If  ^Eschy- 
-Itus^exhibits  the  sinning  of  Agamemnon  as 
pursued  by  furies,  and  Virgil  made  his  hero 
to  be  pursued  by  fate, 


conscience  Jo^pjazsue  Dimmesdale.) 

Our  generation  has  journeyed  far  from  the 
9* 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

* 

Puritan  era,  with  its  grim  justice  and  its  re- 
lentless penalties,  but  Hawthorne  dwelt  be- 
neath the  dark  shadow  of  the  Iron  Age.  His 
intellect  and  imagination  were  alike  fasci- 
nated by  the  Puritan  idea_oLiliStic£.  Grim 
men  and  stern  those  Puritans  named  Cotton 
Mather  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  having 
neither  part  nor  lot  in  human  infirmities, 
and  insensible  alike  to  pleasure  and  pain. 
Generations  of  these  worthies,  with  their 
iron  rigor,  entered  into,  and,  as  M.  Mon- 
t£gut  says,  " slowly  filtered"  through  Haw- 
thorne, and  the  precious  drops  fell  into  that 
vessel  named  "The  Scarlet  Letter."  By 
way  of  contrast,  this  study  of  conscience 
differs  from  the  sentimental  novels  of  to-day 
as  an  oak  tree  differs  from  the  hyacinth,  as 
a  battle-ship  differs  from  a  circus  wrestler. 
Our  age,  with  its  flabby  conscience  and  its 
languid  morals,  does  well  to  ponder  Haw- 
thorne's pages,  to  the  end  that  its  youth 
may  have  "more  iron  in  the  blood,  more 
brawn  and  sinew  in  the  intellect,  more  jus- 
tice in  our  ethics  and  politics,  more  judg- 
ment in  the  theology."*  The  revival  of  art 
and  letters  seems  to  have  fully  come. 

*"The  Eternal  Atonement."— Hitchcock. 
92 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

/   Society  now  needs  to  add  a  revival  of  law, 
justice,  and  the  moral  imperative. 

If  Kant  emphasized  the  starry  heavens 
and  the  moral  law ;  if  Daniel  Webster  em- 
phasized the  thought  of  personal  respon- 
sibility to  God,  Hawthorne  believed  the 
greatest_thought  that  can  occupy  the  human 
mind  is  the  thought  of  justice  and  its  retrib- 
utive workings  through  conscience.  Doubt- 
less there  are  a  thousand  problems  that 
compete  for  the  attention  of  youth ;  but  for 
men  grown  mature  and  strong,  life  offers  no 
more  momentous  question  than  this:  Can 
the  soul,  injured  by  temptation  and  scarred 
by  sin,  ever  recover  its  pristine  strength  and 
beauty?  Is  it  true  that  the  breach  that 
guilt  has  made  in.  the  soul  may  never  be 
repaired,  but  only  guarded  and  watched, 
while  always  by  the  broken  wall  there  lurks 
"the  stealthy  tread  of  a  foe  who  waits  to' 
renew  his  unforgotten  triumphs"?  Is  there 
no  place  of  recovery,  though  man  seek  it 
long  with  tears  ?  "  I  do  not  know, ' '  answers 
the  ol d  Greek.  "  I  do  not  know  that  God  has 
any  right  to  forgive  sins. ' '  But  Dante,  having 
affirmed  that  man  cannot  forgive  himself, 
thinks  that  .<  *,n  may  be  consumed,  andthere- 
93 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

fore  makes  the  transgressor  walk  up  a  stair- 
way of  red-hot  marble  that  pain  may  con- 
sume his  iniquities.       Though    Hawthorne 
dwelt  in  a  grim,  dark  era,  for  him  there  was 
sunlight  on  the  top  of  the  mountains.      The 
summer   shower,    falling   softly    upon    the 
banks    of    violets,    cleanses  the    soot    from 
the  blossoms.     In  the  deep  forest  glen  a  pure 
spring  gushes,  and  into  the  deep  pool  wild 
birds  plunge  to  brighten  their  dull  plumage. 
[  yAnd    Hawthorne   felt  that  somewhere  life 
'  (  holds  a  fountain  divine  for  cleansing  the  dust 
"from  the  soul's  wings.  |   Baring  to  us  all  the 
secrets  of  the  human  hearty  and  portraying 
the  gradual  unfolding  of  pain  and  penalty, 
at  last  he  affirms  that  the  sinning  soul  may 
recover   its    native   simplicity    and    dignity 
through  repentance  and  confession.     There- 
fore, at  the  very  gates  of  the  jail  into  which 
the  prisoner  enters,  Hawthorne  made  a  rose- 
-bush grow,  with  thorns  indeed  to  typify  the 
|sharp  pains  that   society   inflicts   upon  the 
^wrongdoer,   but  with    blossoms,   too,  offer- 
ing fragrance  to  the  prisoner  as  he  goes  in, 
r'and  suggesting  that  if  the  petals  fall  through 
:;  the  frosts  of  to-day,  these  falling  petals,  pass- 
ing into  the  root,  will  reappear  \n  the  richer 
94 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

blossoms  of  to-morrow.  As  if  another  life 
might  recover  the  disasters  of  this ;  as  if,  no 
matter  what  man's  harshness,  great  nature 
and  nature's  God  hold  a  wide,  deep  pity 
that  can  atone,  forgive,  and  save. 

Recognizing  that  the  pivotal  point  in 
David's  career  is  the  moment  of  his  confes- 
sion in  the  temple;  that  through  public 
repentance  Saul,  the  murderer,  became  Paul, 
the  apostle;  that  Judas,  upon  returning  to 
the  high  priest  and  flinging  down  the  thirty 
pieces  of  silver,  almost  wins  a  place  in  our 
regard ;  Hawthorne  believed  that  everything 
in  his  drama  of  the  soul  must  be  made  to  turn 
upon  the  open  confession  of  sin.  There- 
fore, among  many  possible  transgressions 
he  selects  the  one  sin  that  has  the  most 
reasons  against  acknowledgment,  and  the 
one  man  in  the  community  who  would 
suffer  the  most  by  telling  the  truth.  And 
that  his  lesson  might  be  the  more  convin- 
cing he  lends  a  thousand  extenuations  to 
the  wrongdoers. 

Hawthorne    exhibits    this    daughter    of 

beauty  and  sorrow  as  the  target  and  wreck 

of   misfortune.      He  takes  us  back  to  an 

old   English  town,  to  a  decayed  house  of 

95 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

stone,  with  a  broken  shield  of  arms  above 
its  door  in  token  of  its  gentility.  He  shows 
us  an  anxious  but  revered  father,  whose 
spirit  has  been  broken  by  misfortune;  a 
beauteous  mother,  overzealous  for  those  she 
loves;  a  daughter,  as  yet  a  mere  child  in 
years  and  heart,  who  has  suddenly  devel- 
oped into  the  fullness  of  a  glorious  woman- 
hood, having  all  those  gifts  of  rich,  warm 
beauty  and  tall,  full  figure  that  lend  the 
note  of  distinction  to  the  daughter  of  a 
patrician  race. 

Then,  at  a  critical  moment,  we  see  a  man 
of  wealth  entering  the  scene  and  offering 
to  repair  the  family's  misfortunes;  a  man 
well  stricken  in  years;  a  mere  animated 
bookworm,  who  takes  advantage  of  the 
daughter's  inexperience  and  the  parents' 
misfortunes  to  urge  the  opportunity  of 
home  and  wealth.  Mocking  the  young 
girl's  protestations  that  her  heart  held  no 
love  for  him,  by  sheer  force  of  will  and 
wealth  the  old  scholar  carried  her  off  to  a 
continental  city,  with  its  strange  language, 
its  tall,  gray,  forbidding  houses,  its  dark 
cathedral,  and  in  that  lonely  land  the  fright- 
ened girl  came  to  seem  like  a  prisoner, 
96 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

whose  jailer  was  the  old  scholar  carrying  the 
key  to  the  cell  that  shut  her  in.  One  day, 
when  the  few  English  families  in  Amster- 
dam were  about  to  sail  for  the  New  World, 
this  bookworm,  unwilling  to  tear  himself  from 
its  libraries,  placed  the  young*  wife  on  board 
the  ship  and  sent  Jier  away,  friendless  and 
uncared  for,  save  as  gold  lends  protection, 
while  he  stayed  behind  to  feed  his  hungry 
dream  of  knowledge.  On  the  wharf  he 
promised  to  follow  on  a  later  ship.  When 
months  had  passed  and  the  ship  in  which 
he  had  sailed  was  not  heard  from,  this  girl, 
whose  life  had  fed  upon  the  scholar's  time- 
worn  materials  "like  a  tuft  of  green  moss 
on  a  crumbling  wall/'  under  new  expe- 
riences opened  into  the  fullness  of  a  rich 
womanhood  and  found  a  happiness  before 
undreamed  of.  When  the  ship  landed  in 
Boston,  she  entered  upon  two  new  worlds. 

If  once  a  deformed  and  selfish  scholar 
had  guided  her  studies,  she  now  passed 
under  the  influence  of  a  noble  youth,  trained 
in  England's  greatest  university,  with  rare 
native  gifts  and  scholarly  acquirements  that 
lent  their  possessor  unique  eminence.  How 
deeply  did  she  regret  that  irretrievable  mis- 
97 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

take.  How  fierce  her  hatred  of  that  old  man 
who  had  first  deluded  and  then  deserted 
her!  What  bitterness  toward  the  parents 
who  had  done  her  so  grievous  a  wrong!  A 
thousand  times,  also,  young  Dimmesdale,the 
scholar,  indicted  that  grim  Puritanism  that 
made  marriage  impossible  for  this  deserted 
daughter  of  grace  and  beauty.  A  thousand 
times,  too,  he  indicted  Providence  for  cru- 
elty in  stretching  forth  to  him  the  cup  of 
joy  only  to  withdraw  it.  Society's  laws 
shut  him  in  like  a  grim  and  beetling  for- 
tress, against  whose  granite  walls  he  vainly 
struck  his  bleeding  forehead.  But  if  pain 
and  disappointment  weakened  the  youth, 
\suffering  lent  the  woman  strength.  In  that 
Iron  Age  for  a  man  to  transgress  the  mar- 
riage law  meant  not  simply  disgrace,  but 
the  dungeon,  and  death  by  hanging.  So 
the  woman  swore  her  fellow-sufferer's  lips  to 
silence.  Alone  she  walked  her  "Via  Dolo- 
rosa."  Alone  she  went  forth  into  the  dark- 
ness and  the  pitiless  storm  that  now  burst 
upon  her  devoted  head.  Bearing  her  own 
pain  unaided,  she  tried  to  bear  another's 
anguish  also.  Solitary  in  the  majesty  of 
her  sacrifice  and  the  beauty  of  her  love, 
98 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

she  seems   indeed  like  our  "Lady  of  Sor- 
rows. ' ' 

If  motives  of  fear,  pride,  and  love  itself 
united  to  hold  the  wrongdoer  back  from 
open  acknowledgment,  Providence  or- 
dained that  events  should  compel  a  full 
confession.  According  to  the  grim  Puritan 
code  the  offender  against  the  home  received 
the  brand  of  a  red-hot  iron  upon  the  fore- 
head. But  when  the  governor  and  those 
who  had  charge  of  the  moral  interests  of 
the  community  counseled  together,  the 
young  pastor  made  so  earnest  a  plea  for 
mercy  rather  than  justice  that  the  rulers,  in 
a  lenient  moment,  substituted  a  scarlet  letter 
upon  the  dress  for  the  red  brand  upon  the 
forehead.  They  also  sent  forth  a  solemn 
proclamation  commanding  the  people  to 
assemble  in  the  market-place,  that  the  most 
holy  community  of  Massachusetts  might 
"show  itself  righteous  by  dragging  iniquity 
into  the  sunshine/'  Then  straightway  the 
husbandman  forgot  his  tools  and  the  artisan 
his  task.  Gathering  about  the  pillory, 
the  people  found  there  assembled  the  gov- 
ernor, the  counselors,  the  two  pastors,  and 
the  magistrate.  When  silence  had  fallen 
99 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

upon  the  multitude,  an  aged  teacher  arose, 
who,  in  the  face  of  high  heaven,  and  in  the 
presence  of  all  the  people,  charged  home 
the  blackness  of  the  transgression  and  the 
necessity  of  making  known  the  name  of  him 
who  had  led  another  into  a  sin  so  grievous. 
/  It  seemed  also  the  refinement  of  cruelty 
(that  the  duty  of  urging  her  to  full  speech 
and  open  confession  fell  upon  him  whom 
fehe  had  pledged  to  silence,  lest  his  confes- 
sion bring  infamy  upon  his  sacred  profession 
and  incur  the  certain  death  that  she  had 
escaped  by  reason  of  her  innocent  child. 
Dramatic  indeed  that  scene  when  the  suf- 
ferer from  his  desk  urged  his  fellow-sufferer 
on  her  scaffold  to  believe  that  it  was  mis- 
taken pity  and  kindness  not  to  compel  the 
wrongdoer  to  leave  his  high  position  and 
mount  the  pedestal  of  ignominy,  rather 
jthan  go  through  life  hiding  a  guilty  secret ; 
that  every  consideration  of  mercy  bade  her 
jive  the  bitter  and  wholesome  cup  to  him 
yho  lacked  strength  to  take  it  for  himself — 
an  appeal  so  broken  and  so  heartrending  as 
to  cause  all  hearers  to  wait  with  breathless 
expectancy  for  the  wrongdoer  to  rise  up 
and  publish  his  error.  But  when  neither 

100 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

the  plea  of  the  friend,  the  threat  of  an 
enemy,  nor  the  command  of  the  magistrate 
availed  for  wringing  from  the  sufferer's  lips 
any  word,  save  the  broken  exclamation  that 
she  would  never  speak,  but  would  fain  bear 
another's  agony  as  well  as  her  own,  then 
from  the  lips  of  Dimmesdale  came  the 
startled  exclamation,  "Oh,  wondrous 
strength  and  generosity  of  a  woman's  heart! 
She  will  not  speak!" 

In  that  moment  the  man's  dumb  lips 
were  nigh  to  full  speech.  If  the  all- 
sacrificing  love  that  would  die  in  another's 
stead  melted  even  the.  grim  magistrates, 
that  all-enduring  love  broke  the  heart  of 
Dimmesdale.  Every  instinct  of  manhood 
and  honor  bade  him  lift  the  shield  above 
this  shrinking  sufferer,  upon  whose  head  the 
very  skies  seemed  to  rain  crushing  pains  and 
burning  penalties.  But  the  shadow  of  the 
scaffold  struck  terror  through  him,  and  back 
he  shrank  into  silence.  If  the  angels  of  his 
better  nature  bade  him  accept  the  bitter 
cup  of  death,  the  demons  pushed  back  the 
cup  of  pain  saying:  "You  may  escape  the 
prison  cell  and  avoid  the  scaffold.  All  yet  X 
may  be  well/*  That  night  this  daughter  of 

IQl 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

suffering,  sleeping  in  a  dungeon,  seemed  the 
child  of  liberty,  while  Dimmesdale,  who 
seemed  a  free  man,  became  the  bond  slave 
of  sin  and  the  prisoner  of  fear  and  remorse. 
Listening,  he  might  have  heard  the  laughter 
of  demons  rejoicing  over  the  wreck  and  ruin 
of  a  man's  soul.  From  that  hour  he  was 
a  target  for  the  slings  and  arrows  of  an 
outraged  conscience. 

To  the  proverb,  "Justice  holds  an  even 
scale,"  must  be  added  the  words,  "Justice 
never  slumbers."  Transgressions  are  self- 
punishing.  Once  men  taught  that  God 
from  time  to  time  descends  upon  evil- 
doers to  execute  divine  wrath  and  penalty. 
Now  we  know  that  evory  sin  journeys  for- 
ward fully  equipped  with  instruments  for  its 
own  punishment.  Our  earth  is  too  small  to 
make  wrongdoing  safe.  Be  the  speck  upon 
an  apple  ever  so  minute,  the  decay  upon 
one  side  will  journey  round  and  meet  the 
corruption  upon  the  other  side.  Oft  eternal 
justice  seems  to  shrink  our  earth  to  the  size 
of  an  apple,  until  at  last  every  wrongdoer 
and  his  victim  stand  face  to  face. 

So  it  came  about  that  one  day  the  old 
scholar  appeared  in  the  market-place  at 
102 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

the  time  of  Hester's  ignominious  exposure. 
When  he  beheld  the  woman  in  whom  he 
had  hoped  to  find  embodied  the  warmth  and 
cheerfulness  of  home  set  up  as  a  type  of  sin 
before  the  people,  ' '  a  creeping  horror  twisted  / 
itself  across  his  features,  like  a  snake  riding! 
over  them."  Seeking  to  avoid  the  conta- 
gion of  her  dishonor,  he  resolved  not  to  be 
pilloried  on  her  pedestal  of  shame.  From 
that  hour  the  old  man  determined  to  give 
himself  to  the  discovery  of  Hester's  un- 
known lover.  ^"1  shall  know  him,"  he 
whispered.  "  In  his  presence  some  hidden 
voice  will  whisper  his  secret."  Having 
sworn  secrecy  upon  the  part  of  the  one  per- 
son who  knew  him,  he  withdrew  his  name 
from  the  roll  of  mankind,  and  "vanished 
out  of  life  as  completely  as  if  he  indeed  lay 
at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  to  which  rumor 
had  consigned  him." 

Taking  the  name  of  Roger  Chilling' 
worth,  he  used  his  knowledge  of  medicine 
to  strengthen  his  disguise.  As  skilled 
physicians  were  rare  in  the  New  World, 
he  was  soon  counted  as  a  brilliant  acqui- 
sition to  the  colony.  One  day,  when 
the  governor  returned  from  a  visit  to  his 
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Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

pastor,  he  sent  for  the  old  physician,  and 
besought  him  to  use  his  skill  in  the  inter- 
ests of  one  who  seemed  about  to  fall  in 
death.  If  many  accounted  for  the  paleness 
of  the  young  man's  cheek  by  his  over- 
study,  by  his  frequent  fasts  and  vigilance, 
others  feared  that  the  disease  was  deeper- 
seated,  for  "his  form  grew  emaciated,  his 
voice  held  a  certain  melancholy  prophecy  of 
decay,  and  in  every  moment  of  sudden  alarm 
he  was  seen  to  put  his  hand  over  his  heart, 
with  first  a  flush  and  then  a  paleness  indica- 
tive of  pain." 

Once  he  had  taken  up  his  sojourn  beneath 
Dimmesdale's  roof,  the  old  physician  be- 
came strangely  suspicious.  Hours  there 
were  when  this  youth's  spirit  seemed  clothed 
with  such  freshness,  fragrance,  and  dewy 
purity  of  thought  that  his  speech  seemed 
the  speech  of  an  angel.  If  at  such  times 
Chillingworth  turned  his  suspicions  toward 
the  magistrate  or  merchant,  he  always 
returned  to  Dimmesdale.  Prying  into  the 
young  man's  heart,  he  burrowed  there  like 
a  miner  searching  for  hidden  treasure. 
;  Leading  the  scholar  to  talk  of  his  early  life, 
his  studies,  ambitions,  and  discouragements, 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

the  old  man  watched  for  some  hint  thatj 
might  confirm  his  secret  thought.  Yet  at' 
such  times  he  followed  the  speaker  with  as 
cautious  a  tread  and  as  wary  an  outlook  as 
a  thief  entering  a  chamber  where  a  man  lies 
half  asleep.  One  day,  when  several  years 
had  passed,  the  old  physician  brought  in 
some  poisonous  herbs  and  roots.  Asked 
whence  they  came,  the  physician  answered 
that  they  grew  out  of  the  grave  in  which 
was  buried  a  man  who  held  a  guilty  secret. 
When  Dimmesdale  replied  that  perchance 
the  sufferer  earnestly  desired  to  speak,  but 
could  not,  and  affirmed  his  belief  "that  in 
the  last  great  judgment  day  every  heart 
that  holds  a  miserable  secret  will  yield  it  up, 
not  with  reluctance,  but  with  a  joy  unutter- 
able," Hawthorne  says  a  strange  light 
gleamed  out  of  the  old  man's  eyes,  like  one 
of  those  flashes  of  ghastly  hue  that  darted 
from  Bunyan's  awful  doorway  in  the  hillside 
and  quivered  on  the  pilgrim's  face.  After- 
ward it  came  about  that  the  physician  gave 
his  patient  a  quieting  draught,  for  sleep 
with  Dimmesdale  had  long  been  as  fitful  as 
a  bird  that  hops~  from  bough  to  bough. 
When  he  had  fallen  into  a  deep,  deathlike 
105 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

torpor  the  old  physician  drew  back  the  vest- 
ment from  the  sleeper's  bosom,  and  turned 
way  with  a  wild  look  of  wonder,  joy,  and 
horror.  "Had  a  man  seen  old  Roger  Chil- 
lingworth  at  that  moment  of  ecstasy,"  says 
Hawthorne,  "he  would  have  had  no  need 
'to  ask  how  Satan  deports  himself  when  a 
precious  soul  is  lost  to  heaven  and  won  into 
his  community." 

Now  that  he  knew  the  guilty  man's 
secret,  the  malicious  enemy,  under  pretense 
>  of  friendship,  proceeded  to  wreak  upon  his 
sufferer  such  vengeance  as  had  never  before 
been  conceived  by  an  enemy.  He  became 
the  chief  inquisitor  in  that  torture  chamber 
named  the  sufferer's  heart.  Every  morn- 
ing for  a  few  minutes  he  stretched  his  victim 
upon  the  rack.  Every  evening  he  lifted  his 
hand,  and  by  suggestions  caused  a  thousand 
ghastly  phantoms  of  death,  or,  still  more 
awful,  shame,  to  rise  up  and  point  their 
fingers  at  his  breast.  But  conscience  was 
the  chiefest  scourge.  For  Dimmesdale's 
was  not  the  cold,  hard,  iron  intellect  that, 

/when  lon£  time  hath  passed,  can  leave  both 

n,  ... 

the  sin  and  the  memory  thereof  in  the  for- 

\gotten  past.     To  his  keen  intellect  he  added 
106 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

sensitive  spiritual  nature,  moral  sympathy, 
unwonted  powers  of  affection  and  aspira- 
tion— the  temperament  of  which  martyrs 
have  always  been  made. 

Oft,  looking  out  upon  his  audience,  he 
told  his  hearers  that  he  was  blacker  than  the 
blackest,  his  whole  life  a  lie  and  a  delusion, 
his  heart  full  of  sins  that  were  red  like  scarlet. 
And  yet  his  fame  for  righteousness  grew  £\, 
more  and  more.  In  a  secret  chest,  under 
"lock  and  key,  he  hid  a  bloody  scourge,  with 
which  he  plied  his  shoulders.  Fasting  by 
day,  he  kept  long  vigils  by  night,  until  his 
brain  reeled  and  his  strength  failed.  In  one 
of  those  half-unconscious  hours  he  saw  a 
herd  of  demons  drawing  near,  beckoning  him 
to  join  their  company.  Once,  when  an 
angel  band  approached,  as  if  for  convoy,  the 
celestial  beings  started  back  in  horror  and 
fled,  for  they  recognized  his  guilty  secret. 
Saddest  of  all,  the  ghost  of  his  revered  ! 
mother  approached,  only  to  pass  by  without 
casting  a  single  pitying  look  behind. 

One   midnight  hour,    while  he  kept  his 

vigil,  a  sudden  flash  of  lightning  revealed 

the  scaffold,  and  something  suggested  that 

upon  that  spot  perdhance  he  might  find  rest 

107 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

and  peace.  Softly  creeping  down  the  stair- 
way, he  lifted  the  latch,  stole  out  into  the 
night,  made  his  way  to  the  pillory,  and 
ascended  the  scaffold,  now  blackened  by  the 
storms  of  seven  long  years.  For  his  soul 
was  thirsting  for  confession  as  pilgrims  in  a 
desert  thirst  for  the  spring  of  living  waterr 
When  sin  warps  the  soul  out  of  line,  repent- 
ance springs  it  back  again  to  its  normal 
place.  He  who  has  pondered  long  life's 
deepest  problems  knows  that  memory  holds 
no  dearer  recollection  than  hours  when  the 
erring  child  moves  from  sin  toward  confes- 
sion and  forgiveness.  Disobedient,  the 
child  fears  the  parent's  disapproval.  Dread- 
ing the  discovery,  it  conceals  the  sin  through 
deceit.  Soon  the  sweetness  of  the  stolen 
pleasure  passes  away.  Remorse  makes  a 
dark  cloud  to  overshadow  the  child.  Each 
moment  increases  the  gloom.  And  when 
the  darkness  falls  and  the  prayers  are  said, 
and  the  light  is  turned  out,  and  the  moth- 
er's kiss  leaves  the  child  alone,  with  solitude 
comes  increased  sorrow.  Because  its  first 
lie  is  a  sin  greater  than  it  can  bear,  the  child 
calls  aloud,  and  flinging  itself  into  the  arms 
of  the  returning  mother,  in  a  wild,  passion- 
108 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

ate  abandon  of  tears  and  sobs  pours  forth 
the  full  story  of  its  sin,  and,  mingling  its 
torrent  with  the  parent's  tears,  is  cleansed 
in  that  deep  fountain  named  the  mother's 
heart.  What  hour  in  life  holds  a  happiness 
so  deep  and  sweet  as  that  hour  of  confession 
and  forgiveness  for  the  child,  when  it  falls 
asleep,  having  recovered  its  simplicity?\ 
And  men  are  but  children  grown  tall  and 
strong.  If  the  years  increase,  the  sins  of 
maturity  also  gather  volume  and  terror. 

IDimmesdale'sjoul  was  thirsting  for ;_99nfc?= :  V/ 
sjon.    Full  speech  wr"llH  ^ave  regQvered  him 
to  his  native  beauty  and  simplicity.     But 
silence  was  fast  bringing  him  to  the  verge  of 
lunacy. 

Not  until  seven  full  years  had  passed  by 
did  Hester  suddenly  realize  that  the  old 
physician  had  discovered  Dimmesdale's 
secret,  and,  fiendlike,  had  tortured  his  vic- 
tim to  the  verge  of  lunacy.  If  once  she 
had  been  unequal  to  a  combat  with  the  keen 
scholar,  suffering  and  struggle  had  now  lent 
her  strength,  while  the  old  man's  hatred 
and  revenge  had  made  him  weak.  Seeking 
an  interview,  she  told  Chillingworth  plainly 
that  she  had  determined  to  reveal  his  name, 
109 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

even  if  it  cost  the  life  of  his  victim.  Then 
she  stretched  out  hands  of  help  and  succor 
toward  one  from  whom  she  had  been  sepa- 
rated for  these  many  years.  But  death 
itself  would  have  been  less  painful  than  that 
meeting.  Grievous  indeed  the  shock  of 
the  discovery  that  his  enemy  had  violated 
all  the  sanctities  of  his  soul!  Little  wonder 
that  for  an  hour  the  very  foundations  of 
reason  trembled  for  the  broken-hearted  man. 
Shattered  in  health,  temptations  sprang 
up  and  threatened  to  destroy  what  manhood 
was  left.  Then  the  woman's  strength  lent 
guidance  and  counsel.  Surely  the  bound- 
less forest  could  hide  him  from  the  gaze  of 
Roger  Chillingworth.  The  sea  would  bear 
him  to  the  Old  World,  where  perchance  he 
might  rebuild  his  ruined  life.  On  the  mor- 
row, indeed,  a  ship  was  to  sail  for  England. 
Once  the  decision  was  made  to  sail  with 
it,  Dimmesdale  felt  his  old  life  fall  like  a 
worm-eaten  garment  from  his  shoulders. 
Rising  up  from  that  interview,  he  whqjiad 
been  sick,  sin-stained,  sorrow-blackened, 
felt  almost  joy  again.  His  was  the  exulta- 
tion of  the  prisoner  who  had  just  escaped 
from  the  dungeon  of  his  own  heart.  When 
no 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

the  night  fell  it  found  him  fully  prepared 
for  flight  upon  the  morrow.  Yet  that  hour 
was  big  with  peril.  Never  had  there  been 
a  darker  moment  in  this  man's  career.  For 
years  the^  angels  of  his  better  nature  hadk'L 
been  seeking  to  draw  him  to  that  one  place 
where  he  might  recover  manhood — the  scaf- 
Jfold.  And  now  he  was  about  to  put  the 
ocean  between  himself  and  that  pillory 
where  he  ought  to  stand.  That  night,  while 
all  men  slept,  God  heaved  this  man's  soul 
"like  an  ocean."  It  was  as  if  the  angels 
divine  had  redoubled  their  efforts,  making 
one  last,  long  struggle  to  redeem  this  suf- 
ferer back  to  truth  and  his  native  purity  and 
beauty. 

When  the  momentous  day  dawned  for 
Dimmesdale  it  brought  the  duties  of  the 
election  ceremony.  In  the  morning  a 
solemn  procession  of  the  citizens  was 
formed.  To  the  sound  of  military  music 
soldiers  clad  in  burnished  steel  marched 
toward  the  church,  where  solemn  ceremonies 
lent  dignity  to  the  ballot  and  clothed  the 
citizen  with  the  rank  of  sovereign.  When 
the  governor  and  his  counselors  were  seated 
within  the  sacred  building,  and  silence  had 
in 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

fallen  upon  the  multitude  without,  through 
the  open  windows  of  the  church  came  the 
voice  of  the  speaker.  Under  the  stimulus 
of  his  excitement  the  powerful  intellect  of 
Dimmesdale  now  took  up  his  enfeebled 
body  and  lent  it  strength.  And  yet  his 
physician  knew  that  already  he  was  stricken 
with  death  and  was  tottering  to  his  end. 
Standing  beside  the  pillory  that  seven  years 
before  had  witnessed  her  ignominy,  Hester, 
listening,  heard  his  voice,  with  its  old,  rich, 
deep  tones,  indeed  rising  higher  and  higher, 
yet  underneath  the  full  tones  she  heard  the 
DW,  pathetic  undertones  of  pain.  In 
prophetic  mood  the  speaker  was  forecasting 
the  future  of  the  colony,  and  he  prophesied 
high  and  glorious  destiny  for  the  young 
,  republic.  Borne  forward  upon  his  tumultu- 
ous speech,  the  hearers  felt  that  such  inspira- 
tion had  never  before  been  lent  to  mortal 
lips.  It  was  as  if  "an  angel  in  his  journey 
through  the  skies  had  stayed  his  flight, 
hanging  above  the  people,  at  once  a  shadow 
and  a  splendor,  and  had  cast  down  a  shower 
of  golden  truths  upon  the  beholders."  For 
Dimmesdale  it  was  the  proudest  eminence 
to  which  gifts  of  intellect,  vast  learning, 

1X2 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

and  great  eloquence  could  exalt  a  public 
teacher.  And  when  the  speaker  had  com- 
pleted, the  enthusiasm  was  beyond  all 
bounds. 

The  solemn  ceremony  of  the  day  com- 
pleted, the  orator  took  the  governor's  arm, 
heading  the  procession  as  it  marched  out. 
But    once  he   was   in    the   open  air,   Dim- 
mesdale  turned   to  the  pillory  and  swiftly 
ascended  the  scaffold.     Then  a  great  awe 
fell    upon  the  multitude.      In  his   excite- 
ment  the    old   physician    sprang    forward, 
whispering:   "Madman!  what  doest   thou?    ; 
All  shall  be  well.     I  can  yet  save  you.     Do 
not   bring  infamy  upon  your  sacred  profes- 
sion."    Dimmesdale,  now  triumphant  over 
sin,  replied,   "Tempter,  thou  art  too  late; 
with  God's  help  I  will  escape  thee.M     To 
which    his    enemy    answered,    "In   all   the  j 
world  there  was  no  one  place  so  secret — no  | 
high  place  nor  lowly  place  where  thou  couldst  > 
have    escaped    me  —  save    this    scaffold/ 
Then,   supported  by  one  beside  whom  he 
should    have    stood   seven  years  before,  in 
the  presence  of  all  the  people,  he  tore  off 
his  cloak  of  lies  blackening  his  name— not 
knowing  that   he   cleansed  it— dishonoring 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

his  reputation  as  a  moral  teacher  —  not 
knowing  that  Christianity  at  last  had  become" 
powerful  upon  his  lips.  In  that  moment  of 
bitter  repentance,  like  David,  the  sin-dying 
x  man  recovered  his  soul  to  its  native  simplicity 
(  and  beauty.  Stricken  with  awe,  the  behold- 
ers saw,  as  it  were,  a  great  light.  Then  the 
flame  of  life  for  this  dying  man  burned  low  in 
the  socket,  quivered  one  moment— then  went 
out  forever.  When  a  great  ship  goes  down 
at  sea,  the  swirling  currents  eddy  round  with 
low,  deep  murmurs,  and  wlien  the  multitude 
at  last  broke  into  the  voice  of  wonder,  deep 
answered  unto  deep,  while  their  murmurs 
rolled  after  the  departed  spirit, 

The  centuries  have  come  and  gone,  the 
/  scaffold  now  is  dust,  the  scarlet  letter  is  a 
legend ;  yet  through  the  silent  air  there  falls 
]  the  still,  small  voice,  whispering:  "Behold, 
'  thou  art  the  man."     If  God's  good  provi- 
dence hath  held  thee  back  from  such  suffer- 
ing and  sin  as  overtook  thy  fellow-mortal, 
surely  some  selfish   thought,   some  unholy 
purpose,  hath  lent  its  stain  to  thy  secret  life. 
Alas!  alas!    for  him  whose   prayer   is   the 
Pharisee's  of  old,  "God,  I  thank  thee  that 
I  am  not  as  other  men  are,  extortioners, 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter" 

unjust,  adulterers!"  Happy,  thrice  happy, 
those  who  smite  upon  the  breast,  saying, 
"God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner!"  Thou 
child  of  strength  and  youth,  hast  thou  de- 
frauded thine  employers?  Think  not  by 
flight  to  escape  the  demons  who  pursue  thee. 
Flee  not  from,  but  to  thine  employer!  Mak- 
ing full  restitution,  lose  thou  his  regard,  and 
recover  thine  own  respect  and  God's  ap- 
proval. Thou  prodigal  son,  far  hast  thou 
wandered  from  thy  mother's  knee!  Long 
hast  thou  dwelt  in  Circe's  palace!  Deeply 
hast  thou  drank  of  cups  of  flame !  Know 
that  the  path  of  repentance  alone  will  lead 
thee  back  to  thy  Father's  house!  There  is 
welcome,  mercy,  healing,  and  recovery  for 
thy  wrecked  and  ruined  life.  Thou  daugh- 
ter of  beauty,  whose  crown  is  loveliness, 
thou  of  the  disheveled  locks,  with  the  lights 
and  shadows  still  upon  thy  mantling  hair, 
the  time  was  that,  walking  in  thy  father's 
garden,  the  anemones  beneath  thy  feet  were 
not  so  sweet  as  thy  pure  heart.  Wing- 
caught  art  thou,  like  a  bird  in  the  thicket! 
But  know  that  there  is  one  heart  that  aches 
for  thee,  the  Divine  Heart,  who  knows  all,; 
who  understands  all,  who  will  forgive  all, 


Great  Books  as  Life-Teachers 

who  will  make  thee  to  forget  all !  Thou  who 
hast  gone  through  the  thunder  of  life's  battle 
and  who  dost  sit  now  upon  thy  western 
piazza,  waiting  for  life's  sun  to  set,  even  thy 
wounds  may  be  healed,  thy  hurts  be  helped, 
for  thou  mayst  return  to  the  days  when  the 
heart  is  young.  For  men  high  and  men 
low,  for  men  on  the  throne,  for  men  in  the 
dungeon  and  on  the  gibbet,  for  all  wounded, 
bleeding,  broken  hearts,  there  is  welcome, 
healing,  and  recovery.  One  duty  is  thine-A 
repentance  and  confession.  One  place  in 
the  universe  there  is  where  thou  mayst 
escape  thy  sin — the  place  called  Calvary. 
Climbing  thy  pillory,  fling  thine  arms  about 
the  cross.  To  flee  from  Christ,  flee  thou  to 
Him!  " Behold  thou  the  Lamb  of  God, 
who  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world.'' 


116 


Victor  Hugo's  "  Les  Miserables  " — The 
Battle  of  the  Angels  and  the  Demons 
for  Man's  Soul.  How  Jean  Valjean 
was  Recovered  from  Passion  and  Sin  to 
Christian  Service  and  Self-sacrifice 


There  was  a  moment  during  which  he  regarded 
his  future.  Denounce  himself!  great  heavens!  give 
himself  up!  He  thought  with  immense  despair  of  all 
that  he  must  give  up,  of  all  that  he  must  resume.  He 
would  be  forced  to  bid  adieu  to  this  good,  pure,  radiant 
life— to  the  respect  of  all  classes— to  honor,  to  liberty! 
He  would  no  longer  walk  about  the  fields,  he  would 
not  hear  the  birds  sing  in  May,  nor  give  alms  to  the 
little  children!  He  would  no  longer  feel  the  sweet- 
ness of  glances  of  gratitude  and  love  fixed  upon  him! 
He  would  leave  this  little  house,  which  he  had  built, 
and  his  little  bedroom.  All  appeared  charming  to 
him  at  this  moment.  He  would  no  longer  read  those 
books  or  write  at  the  little  deal  table;  his  old  servant 
would  no  longer  bring  up  his  coffee  in  the  morning. 
Great  God!  instead  of  all  this  there  would  be  the 
gang,  the  red  jacket,  the  chain  on  his  foot,  fatigue, 
the  dungeon,  the  camp-bed,  and  all  the  horrors  he 
knew!  At  his  age,  after  all  he  had  borne!  And 
whatever  he  might  do,  he  ever  fell  back  into  this 
crushing  dilemma,  which  was  the  basis  of  his  reverie 
—  remain  in  paradise,  and  become  a  demon  there; 
or  re-enter  hell,  and  become  an  angel?  Thus  the 
wretched  soul  writhed  in  agony!  Eighteen  hundred 
years  before  this  unhappy  man,  the  mysterious  being 
in  whom  are  embodied  all  the  sanctities  and  suffer- 
ings of  humanity, had  also,  while  the  olive  trees  shud- 
dered in  the  fierce  wind  of  the  infinite,  long  put  away 
with  his  hand  the  awful  cup  which  appeared  to  him, 
dripping  with  shadow  and  overflowing  with  darkness 
in  the  starry  depths. 

I  presume  that  all  of  you  consider  me  worthy  of 
pity?  Great  God!  when  I  think  of  what  I  was  on  the 
point  of  doing,  I  consider  myself  worthy  of  envy. 
Still,  I  should  have  preferred  that  all  this  had  not 
taken  place.— Fantme,pp.3^ot3^i,3^2t  416. 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  "LES  MISERABLES" — THE 
BATTLE  OF  THE  ANGELS  AND  THE 
DEMONS  FOR  MAN'S  SOUL.  HOW  JEAN 
VALJEAN  WAS  RECOVERED  FROM  PAS- 
SION AND  SIN  TO  CHRISTIAN  SERVICE 
AND  SELF-SACRIFICE 

Literature  includes  four  epic  poems  of  the 
first  rank  of  genius.  In  the  order  of  time 
these  are  the  " Iliad,"  the  "^Eneid,"  the 
"Divine  Comedy,"  and  the  "Paradise 
Lost."  Strangely  enough,  these  primary 
springs  of  education  for  four  nations  have 
one  and  the  same  theme-i-the  divineness  of 
man's  soul,  its  loss,  and  its  recovery  also* 
Homer's  "Iliad"  sings  the  wrath  of  Peleus's 
son,  the  consequent  woes  that  overtook  the 
Greeks,  and  shows  how  one  sin  can  pull 
down  a  structure  that  many  virtues  must 
build  up.  Virgil's  "^Eneid"  is  an  allegory 
of  the  ages  of  man,  telling  us  youth  wanders 
far  astray,  while  maturity  seeks  out  harbors 
119 


Great  Book,?  as  Life -Teachers 

of  refuge.  In  the  " Divine  Comedy."  "ten 
silent  centuries  find  their  voice,"  while 
Dante  sings  of  the  soul's  injury  by  sin,  its 
purification,  and  also  its  perfection.  Mil- 
ton, in  his  sublime  epic,  looks  out  upon 
man's  tragic  career,  and  follows  the  "Lost 
Paradise"  with  the  "Paradise  Found,"  try- 
ing "to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men." 
To  these  poems  must  be  added  two  works 
that  are  not  epic  in  form.  The  "Idylls  of 
the  King"  is  Tennyson's  "Paradise  Lost," 
with  this  all-controlling  thought — if  one 
error  ruins  the  soul,  a  divine  Friend  there 
is  who  toils  tirelessly  to  recover  the  un- 
jdimmed  splendor.  In  the  realm  of  prose, 

* /Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables"  represents 

/  the  first  attempt  in  fiction  to  show  that  if 

sin  'dims  the  divine  image,  conscience  dis- 

~\  turbs  the  soul  with  sore  discontent,  while 
Christ  never  despairs  of  making  bad  men 
good,  but  toils  ever  on  until  publican  and 
outcast  alike  stand  forth,  clothed  with  every 
courage,  every  heroism,  and  every  virtue, 
being  of  goodness  all  compact. 

When  our  literary  critics  call  the  roll  of 
the  great  novels,  with  striking  unanimity 
they  give  "Les  Miserables"  the  first  place. 

120 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

In  this  book  Victor  Hugo  portrays  those 
representatives  of  society  called  legislators, 
judges,  bishops,  policemen,  the  lover  and 
the  child,  as  lesser  planets,  moving  round  a 
giant  soul  who  is  "the  incarnation  of  all  the 
social  misery  of  his  time/*  In  these  pages 
(we  see  how  God  uses  conscience  to  waken 
a  dead  soul  and  "  plague  the  sinful  man  with 
dark  despair**  until  the  conscience  that  first 
made  a  coward  of  a  bad  man  at  last  makes 
a  hero  of  a  good  man. jf  The  problem  which 
this  book  treats  is  the  most  perplexing 
problem  that  has  ever  faced  thinking  men. 
The  giants  of  strength  and  intellect  and  the 
children  of  ease,  friendship,  and  opportunity 
occasion  little  anxiety  to  philosophers. 
But  the  submerged  classes,  with  their  men- 
dicancy, drunkenness,  poverty,  and  crime, 
fill  the  heart  of  good  men  with  anguish,  and 
even  with  despair.  Over  against  these  chil- 
dren of  good  fortune,  who  live  lives  shel- 
tered by  love,  are  those  who  seem  chosen 
to  misfortune,  ingratitude,  and  shame. 
These  seem  to  go  through  life  pelted  with 
troubles  as  with  fiery  hail.  Feeling  that 
they  are  unloved  by  God  and  unregarded  by 
men,  they  wander  forth  like  King  Lear  with 

121 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

uncovered  heads  into  life's  darkness  and  the 
driving  storm.  For  whether  we  are  citizens 
of  Chicago  or  New  York,  citizens  of  London 
or  Paris,  we  must  confess  that  it  is  but  a 
step  from  the  parliament  houses  and  the 
palaces  to  regions  where  men  are  huddled 
together  in  tenement-houses  like  beasts, 
eating,  drinking,  working,  cursing,  dying  in 
the  same  close,  foul  den,  over  whom  vices 
and  sin  sweep  with  the  force  of  destroying 
waves. 

On  lord  mayor's  day  in  London,  the  city 
fathers  and  merchants,  lords  and  ladies, 
clothed  in  purple  and  fur,  drove  in  stately 
procession  from  St.  Paul's  to  the  house  of 
parliament.  On  the  morning  after  Dives 
had  his  procession,  Lazarus  went  forth  for 
his  parade.  Men  and  women  out  of  work 
walked  in  a  procession  of  dumb  despair,  the 
men  with  gaunt  and  hungry  faces,  the 
women  and  children  emaciated  and  with 
tattered  garments,  their  strength  anger, 
their  bread  bitterness,  their  nights  despair. 
Every  great  city  includes  among  its  people 
multitudes  that  are  debased  to  the  level  of 
beasts  and  are  as  ignorant  as  savages. 
Looking  out  upon  this  multitude  that 

122 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables  " 

goes  throbbing,  blundering,  falling,  bleeding 
through  life,  the  man  who  loves  his  kind  oft 
cries  out:  ("Does  God  behold  this  piteous 
tragedy?  How  can  He  stand  the  sight  of 
this  anguish?  Has  He,  who  once  was  kindly, 
become  cold?  Has  He,  who  once  was  near, 
become  vague  and  afar  off?  Having  lingered 
long  over  Christ's  idea  of  man  and  God,  Vic- 
tor Hugo  determined  to  write  the  story  of 
God's  pathetic  struggle  to  recover  man 
from  ignorance,  squalor,  and  crime  to  his 
pristine  splendor,  exhibiting  the  Divine  One 
as  ever  near  to  each  wanderer,  His  mighty 
and  majestic  heart  throbbing  mercy  and 
pulsating  love  —  a  God  who  never  doubts 
but  that  at  last  He  will  win  man  back  to 
rectitude,  purity,  and  divine  goodness.  For 
among  all  the  great  books  of  fiction  "Les 
Miserables"  is  unique,  in  that  it  exhibits 
the  worst  man  as  hau3jdJ3dne.j^rk  that 


no  injustice  can  extinguish,  a  spark  which 
God  guards  and  feeds,  making  it  incorrupt-, 
ible  in  this  life  and  immortal  in  the  next.  ^ 

Consider  the  man  who  represents  the  out- 
casts and  stands  for  the  uttermost  of  suffer- 
ing and  sin  as  a  test  of  God's  power  to 
recover  and  save.  In  an  era  when  princes 


123 
\ 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

oppressed  peasants  and  plundered  them, 
Jean  Valjean  was  the  child  of  a  poor  for- 
ester. Very  early  in  life  he  was  robbed  of 
'his  parents,  who,  stricken  with  sickness, 
died  from  lack  of  proper  food  and  medicine. 
Reared  by  his  married  sister,  when  he  was 
seventeen  Jean  saw  her  husband  lying  dead 
upon  a  heap  of  straw,  while  seven  little  chil- 
dren, with  piteous  sobs,  clung  to  their  fa- 
ther's dead  hands.  Then  for  ten  years  the 
boy  toiled,  as  brother,  husband,  and  father, 
receiving  sixteen  sous  a  day  for  seventeen 
hours  of  work.  Oft  when  the  children  were 
hungry  he  bowed  his  head  over  his  bowl  of 
porridge,  that  unseen  he  might  slip  his 
piece  of  bread  into  the  hand  of  the  crying 
child.  Once,  when  the  two  little  girls  went 
to  a  neighbor's  hut  and  said  their  mother 
wished  to  buy  a  quart  of  milk — milk  which 
they  drank  to  satisfy  their  cravings — Jean 
paid  the  debt  to  save  the  children  pun- 
ishment. 

For  years  he  rose  a  great  while  be- 
fore day  and  toiled  until  long  after  the 
darkness  fell.  In  childhood  and  youth  he 
knew  neither  teacher  nor  sweetheart  nor 
friendship.  The  winter  he  was  twenty- 
124 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

seven  the  snow  came  early,  and  the  cold 
was  pitiless.  Unfortunately,  he  found  him- 
self without  work,  and  daily  the  children 
cried  for  bread.  One  night,  dumb  with  their 
pain,  little  Jean,  beholding  bread  in  the 
baker's  window,  suddenly  struck  the  glass 
with  his  fist,  pulled  out  a  loaf  of  bread, 
and  carried  it  home  to  the  children,  that, 
satisfied,  they  might  sleep. 

The  next  morning  his  bleeding  arm  and 
his  own  confession  convicted  the  youth  of 
theft.  With  solemn  ceremony,  the  state 
assembled  its  representatives  and  proclaimed 
a  human  shipwreck.  Having  tried  him  for 
burglary  and  violence,  he  was  condemned  to 
the  galleys  for  five  years.  When  the  judge 
bade  the  soldiers  rivet  the  iron  collar  about 
his  neck,  an  old  man  who  witnessed  the 
scene  said  that  Jean  Valjean  sobbed  and 
moaned,  and,  lifting  his  right  arm  in  the 
air,  lowered  it  seven  times,  ever  moaning 
the  names  of  the  seven  children  whom  he 
said  now  must  starve.  After  four  years  in 
the  galleys,  companying  with  thieves  and 
murderers,  who  seemed  to  him  none  other 
than  human  devils,  Jean  grew  desperate  and 
tried  to  escape.  Caught  after  long  hiding 
125 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

in  a  heap  of  rubbish,  three  years  were 
added  to  his  sentence.  Later,  when  the 
attempt  to  escape  was  repeated,  his  sentence 
was  again  increased.  One  day,  after  nine- 
teen years  of  imprisonment,  he  who  had 
gone  in  sobbing  and  shuddering  came  out 
with  a  heart  as  cold  as  granite  and  a  will  as 
hard  as  steel. 

Often  while  pounding  upon  his  stone- 
heap  or  lying  on  the  convict's  plank  he 
had  instituted  a  court  of  justice,  and 
weighed  out  judgment  and  penalty.  I  On 
the  one  hand  he  tried  and  condemned  hun- 
self.  ]  He  freely  confessed  that  children 
can  jbndure  hunger  long  without  dying; 
that  begging  bread  or  borrowing  it  is  better 
than  stealing  it ;  that  starving  was  less  than 
imprisonment,  and  that  in  any  case  sin 
never  halves  misfortunes,  but  only  doubles 
them.  LBut,  on  the  other  hand,  he  asked 
whether  society  did  not  owe  something  to 
his  sister's  orphan  childreny  whether,  in  view 
of  his  twenty-seven  years  of  honest  labor, 
society  did  not  owe  him  work;  whether, 
when  he  had  confessed  his  fault  to  the 
judge,  society  had  not  by  its  excess  of  pen- 
alty wrought  a  crime  against  a  citizen,  a 
126 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

crime  that  for  nineteen  years  had  been  com- 
mitted afresh  daily  upon  his  head.  So  he 
tried  society,  and  found  it  guilty  of  injus- 
tice. He  tried  Providence,  and  found  Him 
responsible  for  his  misfortunes.  He  tried 
the  laws  of  the  state,  and  found  them  cruel 
and  unfair,  and  because  he  felt  that  he  had 
reason  and  justice  on  his  side,  his  heart  was 
full  of  fierce  indignation.  Jean  Valjean  left 
the  prison  knowing  that  he  was  cruel,  be- 
cause he  felt  the  wolf's  instinct  to  rend  and 
tear.  He  knew  that  he  had  become  bitter, 
because  he  made  his  knife  sharp  against  his 
fellows.  He  knew  that  he  was  allied  to 
demons,  because  his  heart  was  full  of  mur- 
derous hate.  Can  a  leopard  change  his 
spots?  Can  a  cold  marble  statue  weep? 
Jean  Valjean  had  not  shed  a  tear  for  nine- 
teen years !  God  alone  seems  equal  to  thafj 
emergency  called  a  bad  man's  heart. 

Over  against  this  convict,  injured  by  his 
own  sins,  brutalized  by  man's  injustice, 
cursed  with  hatred  and  consumed  with  a 
vain,  passionate  desire  to  injure  someone, 
stands  the  bishop,  whom  Victor  Hugo 
exhibits  as  entering  the  lists  to  battle  with 
demons  for  the  soul  of  Jean  Valjean.  Bun- 
127 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

yan  dreamed  his  "Great  Heart,"  but  Victor 
Hugo  must  have  known  some  pastor  of 
quality  so  rare  that  single-handed  he  could 
sweeten  an  entire  province.  The  bishop 
was  generous,  and  having  fifteen  thousand 
francs  annually,  he  gave  fourteen  thousand 
to  the  poor.  He  was  a  student  of  books, 
but  his  love  for  men  in  trouble  amounted  to 
a  passion.  He  visited  the  poor  so  long  as 
he  had  money  in  his  pockets,  then  he  vis- 
ited the  rich  to  fill  his  purse  for  further 
benefactions.  His  sympathy  was  divine. 
When  a  peasant  mourned  for  wife  or  child, 
the  good  bishop  sought  him  out,  and  hav- 
ing the  art  of  holding  his  tongue,  sat  for 
hours  without  speaking  a  word  to  the  heart- 
broken man. 

Was  a  youth  overtaken  in  a  sin,  he  would 
say  to  the  magistrate,  "We  ourselves  are 
ex-sinners;  let  us  be  charitable/'  When 
a  m^n  was  caught  red-handed  in  a  theft, 
the  bishop  said:  "Sin  Js  a  darkness  of 
the  mind.  The  state  that  permitted  igno- 
rance and  darkness  for  this  youth  should 
now  be  sent  to  jail  with  the  thief."  One 
day  a  young  man,  for  love  of  a  girl  and  her 
child,  made  counterfeit  coin.  When  the 
128 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

girl  was  arrested,  faithful  to  her  love,  she 
denied  that  her  lover  had  given  her  the 
false  money.  Then  the  attorney  for  the  state 
conceived  the  plan  of  provoking  her  jeal- 
ousy by  declaring  her  lover  had  been  un- 
faithful, and  exhibiting  bits  of  letters. 
When  she  believed  her  lover  recreant  to 
his  vows  she  became  desperate,  and  making 
a  full  confession,  convicted  both  the  accused 
man  and  herself,  and  so  was  condemned  to 
death.  When  the  people  applauded  the 
attorney's  skill,  the  bishop  exclaimed, 
"This  man  and  woman  will  go  to  the  scaf- 
fold, but  who  is  to  hang  the  state's  attor- 
ney?" 

Once  the  bishop  returned  home  after  a 
protracted  absence.  On  the  following 
morning  a  chest  was  found  at  his  door, 
within  which  were  a'  golden  cross,  a  miter 
rich  with  gems,  a  studded  crozier,  and  the 
royal  robes  worn  by  bishops.  It  was  the 
brigands'  present  to  the  priest,  who  had 
gone  to  their  camp  to  plead  with  them  to 
give  up  their  life  of  sin.  For  this  bishop  is 
Bunyan's" Great  Heart/'  What  kindness 
to  the  poor!  What  tenderness  toward  the 
outcast  and  sinners!  What  pity  for 
129 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

orphans  and  the  fatherless!  Little  wonder 
that  single-handed  the  bishop  redeemed  his 
diocese  to  virtue  and  integrity.  Nothing 
can  withstand  love's  sweet  solicitude.  Love 
melts  the  heart  like  wax.  It  warms  like 
sunshine.  If  oft  arguments  harden,  love 
can  redeem  and  save. 

Unfortunately,  when  freedom  brought  a 
new  era,  Jean  Valjean  fell  upon  other  forms 
of  injustice.  For  his  nineteen  years  of  toil 
he  should  have  received  from  the  state  one 
hundred  and  seventy-one  francs,  but,  on 

,  various  pleas,  the  warden  kept  back  sixty 
francs.  On  the  morning  of  his  release,  daz- 
zled with  liberty,  Jean  made  his  way  to  the 
dock.  Finding  the  workmen  were  receiving 
thirty  sous  a  day,  he  immediately  joined  the 
laborers.  That  night  the  master  paid  him 
fifteen  sous,  saying,  "That  is  enough  for 
you."  When  Jean  insisted  upon  his  rights, 
the  captain  said,  "Mind  you  do  not  get  into 

*  prison  again.'*  But  since  society  continued 
to  rob  him,  he  now  began  to  hunger  for  a  / 
chance  to  rob  society  of  something.  The 
next  day,  consumed  with  bitterness,  Jean 
started  toward  his  native  province.  When 
the  darkness  of  a  chill  October  night  fell,  he 
130 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

entered  a  village,  only  to  find  that  the  po- 
liceman made  him  show  his  yellow  ticket, 
and  treated  him  as  though  he  were  less  than 
a  man  and  hardly  a  beast.  Entering  an 
inn,  before  his  supper  was  ready,  something 
aroused  the  landlord's  suspicion.  Finding 
the  stranger  had  been  a  convict,  he  refused 
Jean  food  and  lodging,  and  drove  him  from 
his  door.  Learning  there  was  still  another 
inn,  Jean  called  for  the  landlord  and,  said, 
"I  am  dying  of  hunger;  I  have  been  on  my 
legs  since  sunrise,  and  have  walked  twelve 
leagues/'  But  a  traveler  sitting  by  the 
fireside  made  an  imperceptible  sign,  and 
after  a  whispered  consultation  the  keeper 
opened  the  door  and  said,  roughly,  "Be  off !" 
In  his  despair  the  man  now  made  his  way 
to  a  peasant's  house  in  the  edge  of  the  vil- 
lage. Looking  through  the  window,  he  saw 
a  table  spread  with  white  linen,  a  smoking 
dish  upon  the  stove,  a  father  laughing  at 
the  child  upon  his  knee,  and  pensively 
thought  that  such  happiness  would  surely 
know  pity.  Knocking  at  the  door,  the 
man  asked  why  he  did  not  go  to  this  inn 
and  that.  Finding  that  Jean  had  been  re- 
fused at  both,  he  suddenly  exclaimed,  "Can 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

you  be  the  man?*'  Then,  dropping  the 
child,  he  picked  up  his  gun,  while  the 
woman  drew  her  children  back,  and  cried, 
"The  villain!"  After  studying  Jean  as  if 
he  had  been  a  viper,  the  man  exclaimed, 
"Be  gone!"  "For  mercy's  sake,  a  glass  of 
water ! "  To  which  the  answer  was, '  *  Rather 
a  charge  of  shot."  Going  away,  he  saw 
the  woman  carry  food  out  to  the  dog  in  its 
kennel,  and  exclaimed,  "And  I  am  not  even 
a  dog!"  An  hour  later,  in  his  despair,  he 
threw  himself  down  upon  the  moor.  But 
the  rain-clouds  upon  the  horizon  were  not 
so  dark  as  the  black  looks  that  lay  upon  his 
forehead.  Suddenly  the  lightning  leaped 
from  cloud  to  cloud — strange  type  of  the 
hatred  that  leaped  from  his  heart  toward 
some  one  whom  it  might  strike  and  burn 
and  wither.  Falling  upon  his  knees  on  the 
ground,  through  very  weakness,  Jean 
looked  toward  the  village,  and  shook  his 
clinched  fists  at  the  lights  of  the  houses; 
shook  them  at  the  stars  in  the  sky ;  cursed 
man  below,  and  cursed  an  unseen  One  who 
dwells  above  the  stars  and  beyond  them. 
Dark  indeed  the  hour  when  man  cries, 
"No  one  cares  for  my  soul." 
132 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

But  if  landlords  were  inhospitable,  their 
cruelty  was  destined  to  deflect  Jean's  steps 
toward  the  bishop's  door.  When  darkness 
fell,  a  neighbor  came  in  to  warn  the  bishop 
that  there  was  a  treacherous  character  in 
town,  and  a  moment  later  there  was  a  loud 
knock  at  the  door.  The  man  who  entered 
was  apparently  in  middle  life,  rough,  bold, 
violent,  with  a  fierce  and  sinister  light  glow- 
ing in  his  eyes.  Standing  in  the  red  glow 
of  the  fire,  his  face  became  hideous. 
4 ' Look  here,"  he  said,  in  a  loud  voice,  "I 
am  a  galley  slave.  Here  is  my  passport.  It 
reads  'five  years  for  robbery,  with  house- 
breaking,  and  fourteen  years  for  trying  to 
escape  four  times.  The  man  is  very  dan- 
gerous/ Now  will  you  give  me  some  food 
and  a  bed?  I  can  sleep  in  the  stable.0  The 
good  bishop  was  kindness  itself.  "Sit 
down,  sir,  and  warm  yourself.  You  will 
sup  with  us.  Afterward  your  bed  will  be 
made  ready." 

Hardly  understanding,  Jean  began  to 
stammer  like  a  lunatic.  Stupefaction, 
doubt,  and  joy  bewildered  his  speech. 
When  he  urged  that  he  had  money,  the 
bishop  made  him  understand  that  he  was  a 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

priest,  and  not  a  landlord,  and  said:  "You 
are  welcome.  This  is  not  my  house,  but 
the  house  of  Christ.  Your  name,  sir,  was 
known  to  me  before  you  gave  me  your  pass- 
port. You  are  my  brother/'  Years  later, 
recalling  that  hour,  Jean  remembered  that 
if  a  moment  before  he  was  faint  with 
hunger,  the  bishop's  kindness  made  his  hun- 
ger to  pass,  and  that  word  "sir"  was  more 
to  him  than  a  cup  of  water  to  a  shipwrecked 
sailor.  "You  have  suffered  greatly,"  said 
the  bishop,  gently,  gazing  long  into  the 
fire.  "Oh!  the  dogs  are  happier!  Nineteen 
years!  The  red  jacket,  the  cannon  ball  on 
the  foot,  a  plank  to  sleep  on,  heat,  cold, 
labor,  blows,  the  double  chain  for  a  nothing, 
the  dungeon  for  a  word,  even  when  you  are 
ill  in  body,  and  the  chain  gang."  "A  place 
of  sorrow  indeed,"  mused  the  bishop;  "but 
there  is  more  joy  in  heaven  over  one  repent- 
ant sinner  than  over  the  white  robes  of 
'ninety  and  nine  just  men.  Ah!  sir,  if  you\ 
leave  the  prison  with  thoughts  of  hatred  1 
and  anger,  you  are  worthy  of  pity.  But  if 
you  leave  it  with  thoughts  of  gentleness  and  j 
peace  toward  those  who  have  injured  you,/ 
you  are  better  than  any  of  us." 
134 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

After  supper,  the  bishop  took  one  of 
the  silver  candlesticks,  and  handing  the 
other  to  Jean,  led  him  to  his  room.  But 
when  the  convict  saw  that  his  bed  was  next 
to  that  of  the  bishop,  he  drew  back,  folded 
his  arms,  looked  at  his  host  fixedly,  and  ex- 
claimed :  ' '  What !  lodge  me  so  close  as  that ! 
How  do  you  know  I  am  not  a  murderer?" 
"That  is  between  you  and  God,"  exclaimed 
the  bishop.  Then,  lifting  his  hand,  he 
blessed  the  man,  and  wishing  him  good 
night,  turned  and  left  the  room. 

At  midnight  that  night,  startled  by  the 
cathedra]  bells  that  pealed  the  hour  of  two, 
Jean  wakened,  dazed  by  his  surroundings. 
Sitting  up,  strange,  confused  thoughts  ran 
wildly  through  his  brain.  The  thought 
that  was  uppermost  was  that  the  hour  had 
come  for  revenge  upon  society.  He  had 
seen  the  servant  put  the  silver  plate  into  the 
cupboard  near  at  hand.  The  soup  ladle 
alone  was  worth  more  than  he  had  received 
for  nineteen  years  of  work.  Thoughts  of 
liberty,  revenge,  murder,  flight,  and  wealth 
chased  through  his  mind,  as  tiger  cubs  play 
in  an  open  glade  in  a  jungle.  When  the 
clock  struck  three  he  sprang  up,  pushed 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

open  the  bishop's  door,  and  lo!  there  in  the 
moonlight  lay  the  aged  bishop,  his  white 
hair  falling  from  his  noble  forehead,  his 
brow  clothed  with  beauty  and  majesty  as 
with  garments.  Transfixed  with  terror,  Jean 
gazed  upon  that  face  as  upon  a  vision. 
Artists  place  a  halo  about  their  saints,  but 
in  his  excited  state  the  convict  saw  above 
the  bishop's  brow  a  nimbus  of  radiant  hope 
and  peace.  There  was  something  indescrib- 
ably solemn  and  majestic  in  the  peaceful 
sleep  of  the  saintly  man.  In  his  agitation 
the  convict  forgot  that  murder  was  in  his 
heart,  forgot  the  club  in  his  hand,  forgot 
that  he  had  thought  to  slay  his  bene- 
factor. Stricken  with  terror,  his  teeth 
chattered  and  he  grew  faint  with  fear.  When 
the  bishop  moved  in  his  sleep,  Jean  felt  the 
arteries  in  his  temple  beat  like  two  forge 
hammers,  his  breath  seemed  to  issue  from 
his  lungs  with  the  noise  of  the  winds  raging 
from  a  cavern,  while  the  hinge  turning 
sounded  like  the  noise  of  an  earthquake. 
When  no  one  roused,  his  hand  released  its 
grasp  upon  the  crowbar.  Turning  to  flee 
from  the  bishop,  as  a  demon  flees  from  an 
angel,  the  convict  saw  the  case  of  silver, 
136 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miseries" 

and  thrusting  it  under  his  arm,  entered  the 
garden,  leaped  over  the  wall,  and  fled  like 
a  tiger  into  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

But  going,  he  was  destined  to  return. 
The  morning  that  brought  the  breakfast  hour 
to  the  bishop  brought  also  five  soldiers  with 
Jean  Valjean  and  the  stolen  silver.  When 
the  officers  entered,  the  bishop  advanced  at 
once,  and  stretching  out  his  hand  to  Jean, 
exclaimed:  "So  you  have  come  back,  my 
good  friend.  Here  is  the  rest  of  your  silver. 
In  giving  you  the  plate  I  gave  you  the  can^ 
dlesticks  also.  They  alone  will  fetch  you 
two  hundred  francs/'  Dismissed,  the  sol- 
diers went  away,  and  left  Jean  to  the  bishop. 
The  convict  trembled  in  all  his  limbs,  and 
the  cold  sweat  stood  on  his  brow.  He 
looked  on  the  point  of  fainting.  Then  the 
bishop  went  to  the  mantel,  fetched  the  can- 
dlesticks and  handed  them  to  Jean,  who 
took  them  mechanically  and  with  wonder- 
ing looks.  "Never  forget  that  you  have 
promised  me  to  employ  this  money  in  be- 
coming an  honest  man/'  said  the  bishop. 
Having 'no  recollection  of  having  promised 
anything,  Jean  Valjean  stood  silent.  Then 
the  good  man  stretched  forth  his  hand 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

and  said:  "My  brother!  Ycui_no_lpnger 
belong  to  evil,  but  to  good.  I  have  bought 
your  soul  of  you.  I  withdraw  it  from  black 
thoughts  and  the  spirit  of  perdition  and  give 
it  unto  God." 

In  his  great  picture,  Retzsch  shows  us 
angels  and  demons  struggling  for  the  soul 
of  Faust.  Oft  the  demons  wing  their 
arrows  with  flame,  but  the  angels  pull  roses 
from  the  bushes  of  paradise,  and,  leaning 
over  the  battlements,  cast  them  upon  the 
heads  of  the  combatants.  Falling  upon  the 
demons,  the  blossoms  turn  to  coals  of  fire, 
but  falling  upon  Faust,  they  healed  his 
hurts.  In  that  moment  when  the  convict 
turned  from  the  bishop's  door,  there  was 
begun  a  life-and-death  struggle  for  the  soul 
of  Jean  Valjean.  All  morning  he  wandered 
about  the  lonely  and  deserted  moor.  Jean 
had  eaten  nothing,  yet  he  was  not  hungry. 
He  walked  round  and  round  incessantly,  yet 
was  not  weary.  Oft  his  agitation  was  such 
that  he  wished  himself  again  in  his  prison 
cell.  Against  the  softness  that  now  swept 
over  him  he  set  the  hardness  of  twenty 
years.  When  a  sweetbrier  in  the  hedge 
reminded  him  of  his  mother's  garden,  his 
138 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables " 

throat  choked,  and  this  emotion  filled  him 
with  new  terror.  Clinching  his  fists,  he  set 
himself  to  hold  on  to  the  hatred  and  ven- 
geance that  seemed  in  danger  of  dissolving. 

The  falling  twilight  found  him  seated  under 
a  bush  beside  the  path.  By  chance  a  little 
boy  crossing  the  field  saw  his  dark  figure, 
and  with  a  sharp  cry  dropped  his  bundle  and 
a  two-franc  piece  that  rolled  against  the 
stick  of  the  convict.  Thrusting  out  his 
foot,  Jean  covered  the  coin.  When  the 
child  asked  for  his  silver,  the  man  sprang  up, 
and  lifting  his  stick,  cried  out  against  the 
little  stranger.  Not  until  the  boy  had  fled 
did  Jean  realize  that  he  had  stolen  the  coin. 

Then  the  thought  that  he  was  a  thief 
went  through  him  like  a  knife.  Uncon- 
sciously a  change  had  taken  place  in  him. 
Victor  Hugo  tells  us  he  had  become  inca- 
pable of  stealing.  Forgetting  his  silver 
plate,  Jean  bounded  along  the  path,  calling 
wildly  for  the  child.  In  vain  he  looked 
everywhither.  His  heart  was  going  like  a 
trip-hammer,  his  teeth  were  chattering, 
though  not  with  the  night  wind,  while  the 
bushes  waved  their  arms  like  angels  of 
penalty.  The  light  that  the  good  bishop 
139 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

had  poured  in  upon  his  darkened  mind 
blinded  him.  His  soul  seemed  like  an  owl 
surprised  with  the  excess  of  light.  Con- 
science whispered  that  he  must  either  go  up 
beside  the  bishop  and  become  an  angel,  or 
go  down  beside  the  demons  and  become  a 
monster. 

So  his  wickedness  and  the  bishop's  good- 
ness griped  for  their  final  struggle.  In  his 
excitement  he  thought  he  saw  the  bishop's 
figure  lighted  up  and  transfigured  before 
him.  Falling  upon  his  knees,  he  saw  that 
face  growing  brighter  and  brighter,  while 
he  grew  less  and  less  and  faded  away. 
At  last  only  the  bishop  remained,  and  his 
smile  of  approval  filled  Jean's  heart  with 
strange  happiness.  For  a  long  time  he 
remained  upon  his  knees  weeping,  with 
more  of  emotion  than  a  woman  and  more 
of  terror  than  a  child.  As  he  wept  the 
light  in  his  brain  grew  more  brilliant.  In 
that  light  his  first  sin,  his  brutalization, 
his  theft  of  the  silver,  his  hatreds,  his  pur- 
poses of  vengeance,  seemed  monstrous 
things,  and  thrust  into  the  white  light  of  the 
bishop's  presence  they  were  utterly  con- 
sumed away.  At  last  he  rose  and  made  his 
140 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

way  backward  toward  the  bishop* s  house. 
About  an  hour  before  daybreak,  when  the 
stage-coach  for  Paris  passed  through  the 
village,  the  driver  saw  a  man  kneeling  on 
the  pavement  in  the  attitude  of  prayer,  with 
face  turned  toward  the  bishop's  door.  It 
is  Saul,  who  saw  a  great  light  on  the  way 
to  Damascus.  It  is  David  crying,  "  Create 
a  clean  heart  in  me,  O  God."  It  is  Peter 
repenting  bitterly  of  his  sin.  It  is  the  beau- 
tiful girl  weeping  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.  It 
is  Christ  saying,  "Ye  may  be  born  again 
and  become  as  a  little  child/' 

It  is  a  proverb  that  fact  is  stranger  than 
fiction.  Since  the  history  of  modern  com- 
merce includes  the  story  of  a  wealthy  manu- 
facturer who  spent  those  years  included  be- 
tween twenty  and  forty  within  the  prison 
walls,  but  who  in  later  life  was  renowned  as 
a  noble  inventor,  philanthropist,  and  re- 
former, it  seems  easy  to  believe  that  this  new 
era  for  Jean  Valjean's  heart,  meant  also  a  new 
era  for  his  intellect.  Be  the  reasons  what 
they  may,  goodness  is  medicinal.  Peace 
with  one's  self  and  one's  God  lends  the  soul 
wings.  If  remorse  poisons  the  intellect, 
the  noble  impulses  fertilize  and  invigorate  the 
141 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

mind.  Sin  is  sand  in  the  soul's  wheels,  but 
righteousness  is  frictionless  living.  When 
Jean  Valjean  rose  from  the  pavement  before 
the  bishop's  house,  he  went  forth  having  two 
thoughts — to  "hide  his  name  and  sanctify 
his  life,  to  escape  from  man  and  return  to 
God."  And  not  once  did  he  waver  from 
his  determination  to  make  himself  all  that 
the  bishop  wished  him  to  be.  From  the 
hour  when  he  began  life  under  the  new  name 
events  conspired  to  help  him.  One  day  he 
chanced  upon  a  method  of  making  jet  from 
gum  lac  and  turpentine.  The  change  was 
a  revolution.  In  three  years  he  built  two 
factories;  in  five  years  he  had  a  large  sum 
in  the  bank;  in  eight  years  he  was  known 
as  a  philanthropist  who  had  built  a  hospital 
for  his  sick  workmen,  and  founded  an  in- 
dustrial school  for  sick  children.  He  became 
the  almoner  of  bounty  for  the  widow  and  the 
fatherless,  made  his  village  in  size  a  little 
city,  and  what  was  better  still,  made  it  a 
^veritable  hive  of  industry. 

But  after  eight  years,  just  in  the  happiest, 

brightest  hour  of  his   new  life,  there   came 

a  moment  that  was  big  with  peril.       One 

morning  he  heard  that  an  old  man  had  been 

142 


-Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

arrested  in  a  neighboring  village.  It  seemed 
that  this  stranger  had  stolen  a  bough  of 
apples.  On  bringing  him  to  the  station,  an 
official  recognized  him  as  a  former  convict, 
one  Jean  Valjean,  who  was  wanted  for  steal- 
ing a  coin  from  a  peasant  boy.  If  the  rest 
of  the  day  the  mayor  was  "  tranquil  without, 
within  there  raged  a  hurricane."  He  saw 
his  place  at  the  galleys  vacant  and  this 
stranger  taking  it.  Fate  seemed  to  have 
found  the  mayor  a  substitute.  For  years  he 
had  longed  and  prayed  for  one  thing — se- 
curity. And  now  that  Javert  had  this 
Jean  Valjean  in  his  clutches,  the  mayor 
might  have  rest  and  peace.  Once  the  old 
man  was  convicted  under  his  name,  Jean 
Valjean  was  dead.  In  that  hour  of  tempta- 
tion "God  heaved  the  soul  like  an  ocean." 
Suddenly  the  very  thought  of  allowing  that 
innocent  man  to  be  condemned  in  his  stead 
stood  forth  a  low  and  hideous  crime.  Not 
to  confess  himself  as  Jean  Valjean  was  to 
thrust  this  stranger  into  the  galleys  and  to 
assassinate  his  life.  While  the  tempest  raged 
in  his  brain,  the  figure  of  the  bishop  rose  be- 
fore him,  and  a  voice  whispered:  "If  the 
bishop  were  here  he  would  have  you  go  to 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Arras  and  deliver  the  false  Jean  Valjean  and 
denounce  the  true  one."  Yet  when  his 
resolve  to  confess  his  identity  was  made, 
the  temptation  began  afresh.  To  surrender 
himself  was  to  give  up  his  factory,  and  de- 
sert his  poor  villagers,  who  depended  upon 
his  industry.  He  remembered  that  it  was 
his  skill  that  had  lighted  the  fires  in  the  factory 
and  placed  the  meat  in  the  pot.  Also  when 
industry  had  driven  out  poverty,  the  men- 
dicancy, vice,  and  crime  had  passed  also. 
Suddenly  something  whispered,  "Events 
have  decided."  Then  he  arose,  and  un- 
locked the  secret  cabinet.  He  took  the 
silver  candlesticks,  his  old  knapsack  and 
stick,  and  hurling  all  into  the  fire,  destroyed 
the  last  thing  that  connected  him  with 
Jean  Valjean,  and  left  the  stranger  to  his 
fate.  Suddenly  some  one  seemed  to  pro- 
nounce his  name  in  a  whisper  that  fell  from 
above.  Then  terror  overtook  him.  His 
hair  stood  erect.  The  perspiration  beaded 
his  forehead.  He  heard  a  sound  of  de- 
moniac laughter  ringing  through  the  cham- 
bers of  his  heart,  as  if  demons  were  laugh- 
ing at  the  conquest  of  man's  soul.  Should 
he  remain  in  that  paradise  named  the 
144 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

mayor's  house,  and  by  remaining  become  a 
demon,  or  should  he  go  back  to  that  hell, 
the  galleys,  that  he  might  be  an^angel  there? 
And  so  he  writhed  in  his  agony  until  at  last, 
with  blood  upon  his  lips,  he  knelt  and 
breathed  this  prayer:  "Not  my  will  but 
Thine  be  done."  Staggering  within  and 
without,  he  received  the  cup  of  pain,  as 
eighteen  hundred  years  before  "that  mys- 
terious being  in  whom  all  the  sanctities  and 
suffering  were  uriited,met  His  Gethsemane." 
Literature  holds  no  more  thrilling  chapter 
than  the  story  of  the  mayor  entering  the 
da^k  to  assume  the  convict's  garb.  For  the 
very  next  day  M.  Madeleine  ascended  the 
bench  beside  the  judge,  and  bade  the  jury 
acquit  the  prisoner.  When  the  magistrate 
thought  him  crazed  with  trouble,  and  won- 
dered, doubting,  Mayor  Madeleine  called 
the  names  of  the  two  convicts  who  had  been 
brought  from  the  prison  to  identify  the  old 
man.  He  told  one  that  he  had  two  let- 
ters burned  upon  his  right  shoulder;  he  told 
the  other  that  in  the  hollow  of  his  left  arm 
was  a  date  made  in  blue  letters  with  burnt 
gunpowder.  When  the  soldiers  found  these 
marks,  and  the  men  knew  that  the  mayor 
J45 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

was  indeed  Jean  Valjean,  the  judge  and  the 
people  felt  a  great  light  shining  in  the  room, 
and  were  "dazzled  in  their  hearts."  Divine 
and  majestic  indeed  the  man  who  could  de- 
nounce himself  lest  another  be  condemned 
in  his  place.  Hath  God  transformed  a  con- 
vict into  a  savior?  "Greater  love  hath  no 
man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his 
life,"  not  "for  his  friends,"  but  for  his 
enemies.  But  to  the  audience  full  of  tears 
and  pity  Jean  Valjean  said:  "You  consider 
me  worthy  of  pity.  Great  God !  When  I 
think  of  what  I  was  on  the.point  of  doing 
I  consider  myself  worthy  of  envy."  And 
so,  obedient  to  the  heavenly  vision,  Jean 
turned  again  toward  the  Inferno,  above 
whose  door  these  words  were  written, 
"Abandon  hope  all  ye  who  enter  here." 

Then  began  a  new  series  of  struggles, 
more  thrilling  than  Bunyan's  story  of  Chris- 
tian's fight  with  Apollyon.  Condemned 
afresh,  Jean  escapes  from  his  prison.  Hav- 
ing saved  himself,  he  remembers  the  dying 
charge  of  Fantine,  and  rescues  little  Cosette 
from  the  beast  that  was  misusing  her.  Put- 
ting the  child  in  a  school,  he  hid  himself 
near  a  convent,  and  out  of  his  apparent 
146 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

poverty  became  the  almoner  of  bounty  to 
the  weak  and  poor.  And  as  the  years  went 
on,  he  who  had  never  known  the  love  of 
mother  or  sweetheart  or  wife,  poured  the 
vast  treasures  of  his  love  about  the  orphan 
child  that  he  had  made  to  be  his  daughter. 
In  love's  sweet  atmosphere  his  very  life  did 
blossom.  Ever  ministering  to  God's  poor, 
Jean's  life  was  full  of  sweetness  and  happi- 
ness. But  when  ten  years  had  passed, 
events  startled  him.  He  beheld  his  tall 
and  beautiful  daughter  possessed  of  dreams 
of  love  and  home.  Grievous  indeed  was 
the  shock.  Should  Cosette  leave  him,  for 
fear  of  discovery  he  could  never  enter  her 
home.  Her  going  meant  the  snuffing  out 
of  the  candle  of  his  happiness.  Henceforth 
his  days  must  be  darkness.  He  who  could 
thrust  a  hot  iron  into  his  hand  and  endure 
the  burning  flesh  without  flinching  felt  his 
soul  passing  into  the  crucible.  At  the 
moment  when  the  temptation  was  fiercest, 
he  learned  that  his  daughter's  lover  was  in 
a  position  of  extreme  peril,  and  that  unless 
he  hastened  forth  for  rescue  the  youth  must 
perish,  leaving  him  in  peace  with  the  one 
whom  he  loved.  In  that  hour  the  voice  of 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

conscience,  that  he  now  knew  to  be  the 
voice  of  Christ,  whispered,  "He  saved 
others,  Himself  he  cannot  save."  So  he 
went  forth  again  into  the  darkness  and  the 
storm.  One  day,  at  the  risk  of  his  own 
life,  he  saved  the  life  of  Marius,  and  gave 
his  daughter  into  her  lover's  arms.  He 
who  had  redeemed  others  out  of  death  to 
life,  now  became  a  martyr  and  mounted  his 
scaffold. 

Then  events  moved  swiftly  on  toward 
the  end  of  the  piteous  tragedy.  One  day 
he  saw  his  daughter  cross  the  threshold 
of  a  beauteous  home,  and  when  the  door 
closed  he  stood  in  the  darkness  without,  and 
knew  that  he  was  in  the  night  and  cold  for- 
evermore.  One  sacrifice  remained.  He 
could  live  meanly,  in  poverty.  His  daughter 
needed  wealth  and  a  dowry.  So  Jean  Val- 
jean  emptied  his  entire  fortune  into  his 
daughter's  hands,  saying  that  he  had  held 
it  in  trust  against  her  marriage  day.  When 
Marius,  not  knowing  that  Jean  was  the 
Mayor  Madeleine,  suspected  him  of  having 
slain  the  manufacturer  and  stolen  his 
wealth,  Valjean  hid  himself  in  a  garret  in  a 
distant  part  of  the  city,  and  denied  himself 
148 


Victor  Hugo's  "Les  Miserables" 

the  feast  of  beholding  his  daughter's  face. 
But  God  is  just.  At  last  every  wrong  is 
righted.  The  day  came  when  son  and 
daughter  knew  that,  being  rich,  Jean  Val- 
jean  had  made  himself  poor  that  they  might 
have  home  and  happiness.  Marius  knew 
that  he  had  given  treachery,  suspicion,  and 
ingratitude  to  the  man  who  had  saved  his 
life.  Cosette  knew  that  having  neither 
name  nor  home  nor  friends,  that  one  whom 
she  had  neglected  had  lent  her  patrician 
place  and  luxury  and  happiness.  Javert 
knew  that  he  had  been  a  wolf  joining  the 
pack  to  chase  down  a  noble  stag. 

Realizing  that  this  man  was  possessed  of 
every  virtue;  that  his  was  the  heroism  of 
Savonarola  to  accept  flame ;  his  the  strength 
of  Socrates  to  receive  the  poison  cup ;  his 
the  fortitude  of  Paul  to  endure  the  whips 
and  scourge  of  * 'outrageous  fortune,"  this 
son  and  daughter  hastened  forth  to  find 
his  garret.  Falling  on  their  knees  beside 
the  dying  man,  they  besought  his  for- 
giveness and  confessed  their  selfishness 
and  shameful  ingratitude.  In  the  hour 
of  death  the  hero,  worn  with  suffering 
and  scarred  with  many  wounds  received 
149 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

in  noble  battle,  laid  his  hands  upon  their 
heads  and  said:  "My  children,  remember 
God  is  above.  He  sees  all.  He  knows  all 
He  does,  amid  His  great  stars.  Remember 
God  is  love."  Pointing  to  the  crucifix,  he 
whispered,  " There  is  the  Great  Martyr." 
Then  silence  fell  upon  the  weeping  group. 
While  their  hot  tears  fell  upon  his  hand, 
they  looked  up  and  found  Jean  Valjean 
looking  into  the  open  heavens,  with  a  great, 
sweet  smile  upon  his  face.  "My  children, 
I  can  no  longer  see  very  clearly.  I  had 
several  things  to  say  to  you,  but  no  matter. 
Think  of  me  a  little.  I  know  not  what  is 
the  matter  with  me,  but  /  see  light."  Then 
the  long  silence  startled  the  weeping  son 
and  daughter.  The  night  was  starless  and 
intensely  dark;  doubtless  some  angel  was 
standing  in  the  gloom,  with  outstretched 
hands,  waiting  for  the  soul.  God  and  His 
angels  had  conquered  in  the  long  battle  for 
the  city  of  man's  soul. 


ISO 


VI 

Tennyson's  "Idylls   of  the  King"— An 
Outlook  upon  the  Soul's  Epochs  and 


Teachers 


But  when  we  take  the  King  and  his  people  as 
actual  men  and  women,  when  we  throw  ourselves 
into  the  story  and  let  it  carry  us  along,  then  we  under- 
stand that  it  is  a  parable;  that  is  to  say,  it  "throws 
beside"  itself  an  image,  a  reflection,  of  something 
spiritual,  just  as  a  man  walking  in  the  sunlight  is  fol- 
lowed by  his  shadow.  It  is  a  tale  of  human  life,  and 
therefore,  being  told  with  a  purpose,  it 

Shadows  sense  at  war  with  soul. 

Arthur  is  intended  to  be  a  man  in  whom  the  spirit 
has  already  conquered  and  reigns  supreme.  It  is 
upon  this  that  his  kingship  rests.  His  task  is  to  bring 
his  realm  into  harmony  with  himself,  tobuild  up  a  spirit- 
ual and  social  order  upon  which  his  own  character,  as 
the  best  and  highest,  shall  be  impressed.  In  other 
words,  he  works  for  the  uplifting  and  purification  of 
humanity.  It  is  the  problem  of  civilization.  His 
great  enemies  in  this  task  are  not  outward  and  visible 
— the  heathen — for  these  he  overcomes  and  expels. 
But  the  real  foes  that  oppose  him  to  the  end  are  the 
evil  passions  in  the  hearts  of  men  and  women  about 
him.  So  long  as  these  exist  and  dominate  human 
lives,  the  dream  of  a  perfected  society  must  remain 
unrealized;  and  when  they  get  the  upper  hand,  even 
its  beginnings  will  be  destroyed.  But  the  conflict  is 
not  an  airy,  abstract  strife;  it  lies  in  the  opposition 
between  those  in  whom  the  sensual  principle  is  reg- 
nant and  those  in  whom  the  spiritual  principle  is 
regnant,  and  in  the  inward  struggle  of  the  noble  heart 
against  evil,  and  of  the  sinful  heart  against  the  good 
—The  Poetry  of  Tennyson,  pp.  777, 178. 


VI 

TENNYSON'S  "IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING" — AN 
OUTLOOK  UPON  THE  SOUL'S  EPOCHS 
AND  TEACHERS 

The  year  1809  may  well  be  called  annus 
mirabilis  for  the  English-speaking  people. 
That  year  gave  birth  to  four  of  the  greatest 
men  of  the  century:  Lincoln  the  emanci- 
pator, Darwin  the  scientist,  Gladstone 
the  statesman,  and  Tennyson  the  poet. 
The  martyred  president  gave  a  new  liberty 
to  slaves,  the  English  scientist  stands  for  a 
new  principle  in  philosophy,  the  great  states- 
man for  a  new  idea  in  politics,  while  the 
poet  led  our  generation  from  doubt  back  to 
faith.  If  the  influence  of  president,  prime 
minister,  and  philosopher  has  been  more 
dramatic  and  imposing,  that  of  the  poet 
has  been  not  less  powerful  and  permanent. 
If  Lincoln  destroyed  bondage  for  slaves, 
Tennyson  lent  meaning  to  the  new  liberty. 
If  Gladstone  gave  the  suffrage  to  classes 
hitherto  disfranchised,  the  poet  lent  men 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

the  manhood  that  justified  the  suffrage.  If 
Darwin  gave  a  new  method  to  the  intellect, 
Tennyson  lent  new  treasure  to  the  heart 
and  conscience.  Passing  by  the  soldier, 
the  philosopher,  and  the  king,  God  hath 
given  the  poet  in  every  age  the  first  place 
in  the  affections  of  the  people.  That  which 
theologians  cannot  do,  the  poets  easily 
accomplish.  From  David's  far-off  era 
down  to  the  time  of  Browning  and  Tenny- 
son, God  hath  breathed  into  poems  and 
songs  the  revelation  of  His  providence  and 
His  love. 

Turretin  stands  for  a  full  hundred  men 
famed  as  philosophers  and  theologians,  but 
men  have  quite  forgotton  their  dogmatics. 
Bunyan  was  an  untaught  tinker,  who  wrote 
a  dream  of  the  pilgrim's  progress  heaven- 
ward, yet  his  poetic  fire  still  burns  and  his 
pilgrim  "holds  on  his  way  as  strong  and 
fresh  as  ever."  "Not  until  we  know  why 
the  rose  is  sweet,  the  dewdrop  pure,  or  the 
rainbow  beautiful,"  said  Curtis,  "will  we 
know  why  the  poet  is  the  best  benefactor 
of  society ;  but  certain  it  is  that  he  is  the 
divinely  ordained  teacher,  harmonizer,  and 
consoler."  To  our  doubting  and  bewil- 
154 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

dered  generation  Tennyson  seems  like  some 
glorious  Hebrew  sage  or  seer  returned  to 
earth  to  lead  men  into  paths  of  light  and 
peace.  Unfortunately  for  his  time,  Shelley 
led  a  blind  revolt  from  all  forms  of  belief. 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough  followed,  but  he  stood 
hesitant  midway  between  doubt  and  faith, 
and  soon  lost  his  leadership.  Becoming  pes- 
simistic, Matthew  Arnold  struck  the  note 
of  "eternal  sadness."  But  Tennyson 
bravely  faced  the  specters  of  the  mind.  He 
fought  his  doubts  and  gathered  strength, 
and  after  long  groping  in  the  darkness 
emerged  into  a  blaze  of  light.  "At  last  he 
beat  his  music  out,"  and  sang  the  deep, 
wide  love  of  God,  the  deathless  destiny  of 
man,  the  radiant  beauty  and  perfection  of 
Christ  as  the  soul's  savior.  His  "In 
Memoriam"  is  the  most  important  religious 
poem  of  the  century.  His  songs  called 
"Doubt  and  Prayer,"  "God  and  His  Uni- 
verse," "The  Silent  Voices,"  "Crossing 
the  Bar,"  were  his  last  will  and  testament 
to  the  world.  Of  Tennyson  it  may  be  said, 
as  it  was  of  Cromwell,  "He  was  a  strong 
man  in  the  dark  perils  of  war,  and  in  the 
high  places  of  the  field  hope  shone  in  him 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

like  a  pillar  of  fire  when  it  had  gone  out  in 
others." 

For  our  literary  critics  it  is  not  enough  to 
mention  Tennyson  as  the  most  represen- 
tative poet  of  the  Victorian  era,  "The  God- 
gifted  organ  voice  of  England  who  hath 
written  lyrics  which  must  charm  all  who 
love,  epics  which  must  move  all  who  act, 
songs  that  must  cheer  all  who  suffer,  poems 
which  must  fascinate  all  who  think."  Great 
as  he  was  as  a  poet,  Tennyson  was  greater 
still  as  a  man  and  a  Christian.  What  leader 
has  made  so  profound  an  impression  upon 
his  fellows  or  won  such  tribute  of  praise 
from  the  great  men  of  his  time !  One  day 
grim  Thomas  Carlyle  met  Tennyson  and 
went  away  to  write  of  him:  "One  of  the 
finest  men  in  the  world.  A  great  shock  of 
rough,  dusky-dark  hair;  bright,  laughing 
hazel  eyes;  massive,  aquiline  face,  most 
massive,  yet  most  delicate;  sallow  brown 
complexion,  almost  Indian-looking;  clothes 
cynically  loose,  free  and  easy;  smokes  in- 
finite tobacco.  His  voice  is  musically 
metallic,  fit  for  loud  laughter  and  piercing 
wail  and  all  that  might  lie  between." 

No  man  of  his  era  was  so  swift  in  piercing 
156 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

through  disguises  as  Thackeray,  yet  he 
called  Tennyson  ' '  one  of  the  wisest  of  men.  * ' 
Gladstone  had  a  great  conception  of  the 
poet  as  a  philosopher.  "I  look  upon  him 
in  his  words  and  works  with  reverence.  The 
sage  of  Chelsea  was  a  genius  small  in  com- 
parison with  Tennyson."  Lord  Shelburne 
called  him  ' '  the  foremost  man  of  his  genera- 
tion. He  realized  to  me  more  than  any  one 
else  whom  I  have  known  the  heroic  idea." 
Upon  the  occasion  of  his  last  illness,  Ten- 
nyson looked  up  into  the  face  of  one  who 
was  standing  by  him  and  said,  "I  should 
be  sorely  afraid  to  live  my  life  without  God's 
presence,  but  to  feel  that  He  is  by  my  side 
now,  just  as  much  as  you  are,  that  is  the 
very  joy  of  my  heart."  But  he  who  went 
toward  death  with  the  faith  of  God  strength- 
ening his  heart  went  through  life  with  the 
light  of  God  shining  upon  his  face.  Recall- 
ing a  week  in  the  poet's  home,  a  gifted 
friend  who  knew  him  best  wrote,  "Talking 
with  Alfred  Tennyson  seemed  to  lift  me  out 
of  the  earth— earthy.  It  was  like  what  a 
retreat  is  to  the  religious."  For  precious 
as  are  his  poems,  Tennyson's  character  and 
career  are  treasures  beyond  all  the  achieve- 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ments  of  his  splendid  intellect.  Like  his 
own  King  Arthur,  he  wore  "the  white 
flower  of  a  blameless  life/'  Like  Milton  he 
daily  pledged  himself  to  conscience  and  his 
God,  "believing  that  he  who  would  write 
well  in  laudable  things  ought  himself  to  be 
a  true  poem,"  and  therefore  hoped  "to 
leave  something  so  written  that  men  should 
not  willingly  let  it  die/1 

In  his  memoirs  of  the  poet  laureate,  Hal- 
lam  Tennyson  tells  us  that  his  father  left 
his  last  religious  poem  as  a  final  message  to 
the  world, "summing  up  the  faith  in  which 
he  had  lived/'  Fascinating  indeed  the 
story  how  Tennyson  moved  from  doubt  to 
belief.  It  happened  that  the  young  poet 
entered  the  university  at  a  moment  when 
doubt  was  becoming  a  fad  and  faith  a  form 
of  folly.  The  era  of  his  manhood  was  by 
way  of  preeminence  the  era  of  skepticism. 
Carrying  their  principle  to  a  rash  extreme, 
some  evolutionists  rose  up  to  say  that  the 
brain  secretes  thought,  as  the  liver  secretes 
bile.  These  writers  also  explained  the 
optimism  of  one  philosopher  and  the  ^pes- 
simism of  another  by  the  shifting  of  the 
brain  molecules.  They  accounted  for  the 
158 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

supreme  enthusiasm  and  victory  of  Socrates 
and  Savonarola  by  the  pressure  of  gases 
upon  the  arteries  of  the  brain.  The  magi- 
cian in  the  "Arabian  Nights "  waved  his 
wand  above  an  empty  jug,  and  from  the 
mouth  thereof  evoked  an  orange  seed  that 
swelled,  waxed  into  a  tree,  put  forth  its 
buds,  ripened  the  golden  fruit,  while  an- 
other wave  of  the  wand  caused  the  tree  to 
retreat  into  seed  and  jug — and  all  this  mar- 
vel, too,  in  a  moment  of  time.  But  this 
wonder  tale  seems  as  nothing  compared  to 
the  feats  that  the  philosopher  could  pro- 
duce with  that  magician  named  "matter." 
One  molecule  and  a  little  moisture — these 
were  sufficient  to  account  for  an  "Iliad,"  a 
"Principia,"  a  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  In 
that  era  of  sneers  and  paralyzing  doubts,  full 
many  a  gifted  boy  in  England's  university 
made  shipwreck  of  his  faith.  Even  Arthur 
Hugh  Clough,  with  his  rare  intellect  and 
deep  religious  nature,  was  bewildered,  and 
became,  as  Thomas  Arnold  said,  "the  Ham- 
let of  the  nineteenth  century."  In  such  an 
atmosphere  Tennyson  passed  his  youth  and 
maturity.  He  was  a  brave  doubter,  and  was 
familiar  with  every  attack  that  could  be  made 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

upon  Christ  and  Christianity.  Becoming 
increasingly  interested  in  nature  and  science, 
he  fronted  every  form  of  materialism  and 
agnosticism  with  every  ideal  substitute  for 
God.  Among  his  closest  friends  were 
Huxley  and  Tyndall,  and  by  years  of 
study  he  became  almost  a  specialist  in  the 
principles  of  physics  and  biology.  Later, 
Professor  Norman  Lockyer  tells  us  he 
turned  to  astronomy  and  saturated  his  mind 
with  the  facts  of  that  fascinating  science. 
In  saying  to  Charles  Darwin,  "Your  theory 
of  evolution  does  not  make  against  Chris- 
tianity, "to  which  Darwin  answered,  "Cer- 
tainly not,"  Tennyson  does  but  express  the 
conclusion  to  which  he  himself  had  arrived 
after  long  investigation. 

He  fought  his  doubts  and  gathered  strength, 
He  would  not  make  his  judgment  blind. 
He  faced  the  specters  of  the  mind 
And  laid  them;  thus  he  came  at  length 
To  find  a  stronger  faith  than  was  his  own. 

Of  God  he  said:  "Take  away  belief  in 
the  self-conscious  personality  of  God  and 
you  take  away  the  backbone  of  the  world. 
I  should  infinitely  rather  feel  myself  the 
most  miserable  wretch  on  the  face  of  the 
160 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

earth,  with  a  God  above,  than  the  highest 
type  of  man  standing  alone.  My  most  pas- 
sionate desire  is  for  a  clearer  and  fuller  vision 
of  God. ' '  Not  less  clear  were  his  convictions 
about  Christ.  "Christianity,  without  the 
central  figure  of  the  Son  of  Man,  becomes 
cold.  I  am  amazed  at  the  splendor  of  Christ's 
purity  and  holiness  and  at  His  infinite 
beauty/'  If  he  disliked  discussion  as  to 
the  nature  of  Christ,  because  "none  know- 
eth  the  Son  but  the  Father/'  he  affirmed 
that  Christ  was  "the  Maker,  the  Lord,  the 
Light,  the  Life  indeed."  Of  prayer  he  said 
th^t  it  was  like  opening  "a  sluice  between 
the  great  ocean  and  our  little  channels  when 
the  sea  gathers  itself  together  and  flows  in 
at  full  tide."  "More  things  are  wrought 
by  prayer  than  this  world  dreams  of — 

"  For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats, 

That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 

If,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  of  prayer 

Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friends? 

For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 

Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 

In  no  great  author  has  the  faith  of  immor- 
tality been  more  deep  and  strong.     "I  can 
hardly  understand,"  said  Tennyson,  "how 
161 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

any  great  imaginative  man  who  has  deeply 
lived,  suffered,  thought,  and  wrought  can 
doubt  of  the  soul's  continuous  progress  in 
after  life."  For  one  by  one  Tennyson  con- 
quered his  doubts,  and  at  last  those  faiths 
called  God,  Christ,  prayer,  sin,  repentance, 
forgiveness,  immortality,  became  for  him 
faiths  as  immovable  as  the  mountains,  as 
permanent  as  the  stars  that  guide  the 
mariner  homeward. 

From  one  view-point  Tennyson's  "In 
Memoriam"  is  the  most  important  religious 
poem  of  the  century,  but  from  another 
"The  Idylls  of  the  King"  forms'a  mgral 
parable  of  equal  value  and  importance. 
Because  they  represent  the  maturity  of  his 
genius  and  the  perfection  of  his  art,  his 
deepest  convictions  and  his  highest  wis- 
dom, the  "Idylls"  would  seem  to  form  the 
poem  upon  which  his  fame  must  ultimately 
rest.  The  works  of  Tennyson  include  more 
than  three  hundred  quotations  from  the 
Bible,  and  are  pervaded  with  a  spirit  so 
deeply  devout  that  men  have  come  to  feel 
that  he  is  essentially  our  religious  poet,  and 
that  it  is  in  the  realm  of  religious  thought 
that  his  genius  has  found  its  highest  ex- 
162 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

pression:  If  the  "Paradise  Lost"  looks 
backward  and  shows  how  one  sin  sent  one 
man  into  the  wilderness;  if  the  "Divine 
Comedy "  looks  forward  and  shows  how  sins 
may  be  punished  and  purged  away,  "The 
Idylls  of  the  King"  forms  a  study  of  the 
present  and  offers  an  outlook  upon  the  great 
epochs  and  teachers  of  the  soul. 

Interpreting  his  own  poem,  Tennyson 
says:  "Birth  is  a  mystery  and  death  is  a 
mystery,  and  midway  between  lies  the  table- 
land of  life  with  its  struggles  and  perplexi- 
ties." For  David,  man  comes  made  in 
God's  image;  for  Wordsworth,  man  comes 
'Trailing  clouds  of  glory";  for  Tennyson, 
"man  comes  from  the  great  deep,  to  the 
great  deep  he  goes."  Arthur  stands  out  as 
a  mystic  incarnation,  a  Christ-man,  pure, 
noble,  unerring.  He  is  the  perfect  flower 
of  purity  and  chivalry.  He  wars  against 
Lancelot  as  the  spirit  against  the  flesh. 
The  fall  of  his  Round  Table  is  the  fall  of 
the  city  of  man's  soul.  The  tragedy  of 
King  Arthur's  career  is  that  man  struggles 
for  the  highest  things  for  himself  and  others, 
only  to  find  his  work  undone  through  the 
weakness  and  folly  of  his  followers.  Recall- 
163 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ing  the  pledges  that  Christ  asks  from  His 
disciples,  Tennyson  represents  the  knights 
of  the  Round  Table  as  laying  their  hands  in 
King  Arthur's  while  they  swear: 

To  reverence  their  conscience  as  their  king, 
To  break  the  heathen  and  uphold  the  Christ, 
To  ride  abroad  redressing  human  wrongs, 
To  speak  no  slander,  no,  nor  listen  to  it, 
To  honor  his  own  words  as  if  his  God's, 
To  lead  sweet  lives  in  purest  chastity, 
To  love  one  maiden  only,  cleave  to  her, 
To  worship  her  by  years  of  noble  deeds, 
Not  only  to  keep  down  the  base  in  man, 
But  teach  high  thought  and  amiable  words 
And  courtliness  and  the  desire  of  fame 
And  love  of  truth  and  all  that  makes  a  man. 

And  this  mystic  king,  half-human,  half- 
divine,  hath  such  purity  that  when  his 
knights  lay  hands  in  his,  into  their  faces 
comes  "a  momentary  likeness  of  the  king/' 
For  Arthur  stands  for  man's  soul,  made  in 
the  image  of  God  and  clothed  with  power 
to  redeem  and  save  its  fellows. 

In  his^Gareth  and  Lynette"  Tennyson 
tells  us  man's  growth  begins  with  struggle, 
testing,  and  discipline,  and  that  character  is 
not  so  much  protected  innocence  as  prac- 
ticed virtue.  Gareth  is  a  youth,  nobly 
born,  and  the  very  incarnation  of  ambition, 
164 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

honor,  purity,  and  aspiration.  To  this 
boy,  living  in  his  mother's  castle,  surrounded 
by  servants  who  fetch  and  carry  for  him, 
comes  the  vision  of  a  fair  life  he  has  never 
led,  and  forth  he  goes,  preferring  to  be  van- 
quished in  the  right  to  being  victorious  in 
the  wrong.  Refused  a  commission  as  knight 
by  reason  of  his  youth,  he  becomes  a  scul- 
lion in  Arthur's  kitchen  if  only  he  may  be 
near  to  this  glorious  king.  When  Lynette, 
fleeing  from  her  enemies,  seeks  refuge  in 
Arthur's  castle,  Gareth  undertakes  the  dan- 
gerous task  of  freeing  her  land  from  enemies. 
Going  forth  without  fear,  the  boy  is  uncon- 
qi^rable,  because  he  knows  not  when  he 
has  been  conquered.  Fighting  against  four 
knights,  he  unhorses  all.  Falling  into  an 
ambush,  he  escapes  unscathed.  When  the 
night  fell,  and  he  was  worn  with  the  heat  and 
burden  of  the  day,  Gareth  is  again  victori- 
ous, like  one  who,  having  slain  the  sins  of 
his  youth  and  his  maturity,  slays  also  the 
sins  of  his  old  age.  For,  slowly  rising  on 
stepping-stones  of  his  dead  self,  Gareth 
climbs  to  higher  things.  If,  conscious  of 
his  kingly  birth,  he  suffers  because  Lynette 
counts  him  a  scullion  and  treats  him  with 
165 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

contempt,  finally  his  bravery  dissolves  her 
scorn,  compels  her  admiration,  and  wins  her 
love.  At  last  he  rides  forth  against  the 
knight  of  the  Black  Armor  named  Death. 
When  Death's  helmet  is  cloven  by  Gareth, 
forth  leaped  the  bright  face  of  a  blooming 
boy,  "fresh  as  a  new-born  flower,"  and 
Gareth,  conquering  Death,  wins  an  immortal 
youth.  What  would  Tennyson  have  us 
understand  from  this  idyll  of  Gareth?  It  is 
Plato  saying,  "Temptation  is  the  first 
teacher."  It  is  Emerson  saying,  "The 
youth  who  surrenders  himself  to  a  great 
ideal  himself  becomes  great."  It  is  Stop- 
ford  Brooke  saying,  "The  soul  that  lat%hs 
and  loves  and  rides  for  the  right  has  all  the 
world  at  his  feet."  It  is  Ruskin  saying, 
"To  be  heroic  is  happiness;  to  bear  all 
bravely  and  righteously  in  the  dazzling  sun- 
shine of  the  morning;  not  to  forget  God, 
in  whom  you  trust,  when  He  gives  you 
most;  not  to  forget  those  who  trust  you 
when  they  seem  to  need  you  least — this  is 
the  difficult  fortitude."  It  is  Sir  Galahad 
himself,  "whose  strength  is  the  strength  of 
ten,  because  his  heart  is  pure."  It  is  God 
making  invincible  the  arm  of  the  young 
166 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

knight  errant,  who  will  lose  his  life  to  save 
his  ideals  and  save  his  fellows. 

In  the  Geraint  and  Enid  there  is  a  rift  in 
the  lute  that  will  make  the  music  dumb. 
In  this  idyll  we  see  how  one  sin  can  mar  the 
soul,  making  the  days  bitterness  and  the 
nights  anguish.  Like  Saul,  Geraint  was  a 
goodly  youth.  Like  David,  he  vanquished 
an  enemy  in  an  unequal  combat.  Like 
Othello,  he  met  his  wife's  loyalty  and  de- 
votion with  suspicion  and  jealous  exaction. 
Doubting  the  queen's  honor,  he  who  has 
brought  Enid  to  her  court  drags  her  forth 
into  the  wilderness.  Waking  one  morn,  he 
finds  his  wife  weeping,  and  concludes  that 
she  is  false.  If  jealousy  has  made  Geraint's 
lips  dumb,  love  makes  Enid  unwilling  to 
defend  herself.  Thinking  only  of  himself, 
the  king  rides  forth  into  the  forest,  compel- 
ling Enid  to  go  on  before,  so  that  she  is  the 
first  to  encounter  danger.  Although  for- 
bidden to  speak  to  her  lord,  she  braves  his 
anger  to  warn  him  of  enemies  lying  in  am- 
bush. Left  alone  with  rude  brigands,  her 
purity  and  her  blazing  eyes  hold  the  bandits 
at  bay.  In  an  hour  when  she  believed  her 
husband  dead,  her  devotion  and  courage 
167 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

rose  to  a  supreme  height.  She  stands  forth 
like  an  angel  of  loveliness,  clothed  with 
devotion,  patience,  and  purity.  At  last  her 
beautiful  spirit  shames  Geraint's  doubt,  dis- 
solves his  jealousy,  recovers  him  to  the 
sanity  of  trust  and  love.  And  when  the  sin 
is  put  away,  the  cloud  passes  from  the  sky. 

And  never  yet,  since  high  in  paradise 
O'er  the  four  rivers  the  first  roses  blew, 
Came  purer  pleasure  unto  mortal  kind, 
Than  lived  through  her  who  in  that  perilous  hour 
Put  hand  to  hand  beneath  her  husband's  heart 
And  felt  him  hers  again;  she  did  not  weep, 
But  o'er  her  meek  eyes  came  a  happy  mist 
Like  that  which  kept  the  heart  of  Eden  green 
Before  the  useful  trouble  of  the  rain. 

Then  for  Arthur's  court  the  sin  that  at 
first  had  been  so  small  became  a  contagion 
that  polluted  all  the  air.  Even  those  who 
stood  upon  the  outermost  circle  of  Lance- 
lot's life  felt  the  shadow  of  his  black  deed. 
One  youth  of  the  Round  Table  was  there, 
named  Balin.  In  childhood  he  learned 
ungovernable  anger  from  his  father.  In 
manhood  oft  his  anger  raged  like  an  inner 
demon.  But  Arthur  was  patient  toward  the 
young  knight,  who  had  his  repentant  moods, 
and  slowly  taught  Balin  courtesy  and  gentle- 
168 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

ness.  Two  ideals  the  young  knight  cher- 
ished. He  looked  to  Lancelot  as  unto 
earth's  bravest  knight.  He  looked  toward 
Guinevere  as  toward  earth's  noblest  lady. 
What  a  shock  was  his  when  first  he  learned 
of  the  queen's  falsity  and  the  knight's  faith- 
lessness! In  that  moment  perished  Balin's 
faith  in  every  form  of  good.  Thenceforth 
his  hand  was  against  every  man.  One  day, 
warring  with  a  stranger,  he  turned  his 
weapons  against  his  own  brother,  and  slay- 
ing him,  received  his  mortal  wound.  So 
the  death  of  the  two  brave  knights  lay  at 
the  door  of  these  guilty  ones  who  had 
wrecked  the  faith  of  a  youth  bravely  strug- 
gling upward.  Having  sent  forth  a  shower 
of  sparks,  the  great  engine  speeds  on,  but 
the  spark  falling  into  the  grass,  where  it 
kindles  a  conflagration,  is  one  with  the 
flame  in  the  engine  that  now  hath  journeyed 
afar.  And  man  is  responsible  for  his  un- 
conscious influence,  that  is  remote  and  from 
which  he  hath  journeyed  afar,  not  less  than 
,  for  the  deeds  just  at  hand. 

In  the  Merlin  and  Vivien,  sins  that  once 
were    secret    become    bold    and   impudent. 
Vivien   is  the  very   queen   of   wickedness. 
169 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Ascending  her  throne,  with  notes  of  defi- 
ance she  publishes  the  sin  of  the  guilty 
knight.  Beautiful  without,  she  was  all 
black  within.  Creeping  through  the  court, 
she  spread  the  scandal  regarding  Guinevere. 
She  laughs  at  the  folly  of  those  knights  who 
refused  to  stretch  forth  the  hand  and  pluck 
life's  scarlet  blossoms.  Delilah-like,  she 
cast  her  spell  on  Merlin,  that  Samson  of 
intellect,  and  spoiled  him  of  his  strength. 
Spreading  more  and  more,  sin  soils  all,  save 
Arthur,  Sir  Bors,  Galahad,  Percival,  and  his 
sister.  Tempted  in  her  hours  of  luxury  and 
leisure,  the  beautiful  Ettarre  proves  false 
to  her  sworn  pledge,  and  is  slain  for  her 
faithlessness.  Wounded  by  the  treachery 
of  his  bosom  friend,  maddened  by  the  false- 
hood of  one  whom  he  loves  as  life  itself, 
Pelleas  rushes  into  the  darkness  and  the 
storm,  and  falls  on  death.  But  if  this  noble 
youth  is  ruined  by  the  perfidy  of  a  wicked 
world,  Tristram  suffers  a  deeper  hurt.  In 
him  sin  has  made  the  light  to  be  darkness. 
He  follows  that  false  fire,  the  will-o'-the- 
wisp,  kindled  by  passion.  Brutalized  by 
wickedness  and  sodden  in  sin,  his  delicacy 
at  last  dies.  With  flippant,  jaunty  air  he 
170 


Tennyson's  Cf  Idylls  of  the  King" 

talks  of  the  freedom  of  loving  where  one 
wills,  and  how  affection  fails  when  beauty 
fails.  Then,  overtaken  red-handed  in  his 
sins,  the  avenger  smites  him  unto  death. 
For  what  man  sows,  that  he  reaps. 

And  when  sin  and  selfishness  have 
wrought  havoc  in  the  soul,  love  comes  in 
to  bless  when  pure,  to  blight  when  unholy. 
What  fire  is  to  an  opal,  that  love  is  to 
man's  life.  Wisdom  can  inform  man,  but 
love  alone  can  mellow  and  mature  him. 
Therefore  great  authors  make  the  hero's 
supremacy  to  begin  with  the  beginning  of 
love.  Laura  lends  purity  to  Petrarch. 
Beatrice  lends  light  to  Dante.  Highland 
Mary  lends  music  to  Burns.  Elizabeth  Bar- 
rett lends  maturity  to  Robert  Browning. 
Men  go  through  years  without  fulfilling  the 
growth  and  happiness  of  a  day.  Then  sud- 
denly the  beloved  one  stands  forth,  and  lo ! 
the  horizons  take  wings  and  flee  away,  new 
worlds  swing  solemnly  into  sight ;  love  smites 
"the  chords  of  self,  that,  trembling  into 
music,  pass  from  sight. ' '  Then  the  sacrifice 
becomes  a  joy,  service  is  a  sacrament,  devo- 
tion is  delight.  But  love  is  a  flame  that 
must  be  fed  by  answering  love,  and,  met 
171 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

with     dishonor,     the     loving     heart     doth 
break. 

The  Maid  of  Astolat  is  the  very  lily 
of  womanhood.  The  queen  is  a  spiced 
rose  of  rich  perfumes  and  opulent  petals. 
When  the  wounded  knight  came  to  her 
father's  castle,  Elaine  served,  sacrificed, 
revered,  worshiped,  loved  in  a  sweet  aban- 
don of  trust.  And  when  Lancelot,  healed 
by  her  medicines,  kissed  her,  offered  friend- 
ship, and  dropped  dark  hints  of  his  sad 
story,  earth's  rude  winds  and  harsh  wicked- 
ness broke  Elaine's  pure,  innocent  spirit. 
Midway  between  this  daughter  of  love  and 
purity  and  this  queen  whose  beauty  had 
rich  scarlet  and  gold  and  black  mingled  with 
its  whiteness,  stood  Lancelot,  who  might 
have  been  the  noblest  of  all  the  knights, 
whose  tragedy  it  is  that  he  would  fain  be 
loyal  to  his  king  without  being  disloyal  to 
his  queen.  Yet  fidelity  to  Arthur  bade  him 
flee  from  the  court,  and  fidelity  to  Guine- 
vere made  him  false  to  King  Arthur. 

Therefore  his  honor  in  this  honor  stood, 
And  his  faith  unfaithful  kept  him  falsely  true. 

At  last  sin's  black  cloud  bursts  into  full 
storm.     Lancelot  flees.     Dumb  with  pain 
172 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

and  stunned  with  anguish,  the  knights 
move  through  the  Round  Table  like  white 
ghosts.  Then  war  breaks  forth.  Burning 
villages  light  up  the  plains.  Twelve  great 
battles,  "  sword  and  fire,  red  ruin,  the  break- 
ing up  of  laws" — these  were  the  doom  of 
Arthur  and  the  fruit  of  Lancelot's  sin. 
Not  until  long  time  had  passed  was  the 
king  victorious  over  his  black  and  ruined 
land. 

Foreseeing  the  end  of  his  career,  one 
question  ever  fronted  this  flower  of  knights : 
Must  this  separation  from  Guinevere  be 
eternal?  Is  there  no  place  of  recovery  for 
this  daughter  of  beauty?  Is  there  no  hope 
for  the  fallen,  and  no  life  for  the  lost?  The 
prodigal  found  welcome  in  his  father's  house, 
and  perchance  there  is  recovery  for  this 
queen,  weeping  in  the  monastery,  where 
for  months  she  hath  hidden.  Bitter!  oh 
how  bitter  her  prayers ! 

"  Late,  late,  so  late!  and  dark  the  night  and  chill; 
Late,  late,  so  late,  but  we  can  enter  still. 
Too  late,  too  late,  ye  cannot  enter  now. 
Have  we  not  heard,  the  bridegroom  is  so  sweet? 
O,  let  us  in,  though  late  to  kiss  his  feet. 
No,  no;  too  late;  ye  cannot  enter  now." 


173 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

That  night  in  the  darkness  the  king  sat 
on  horseback  at  the  door. 

And  near  him  the  sad  nuns,  with  each  a  light, 

Stood,  and  he  gave  them  charge  about  the  queen, 

To  guard  and  foster  her  forevermore. 

She  did  not  see  his  face, 

Which  then  was  as  an  angel's,  but  she  saw 

The  vapor  rolling  round  the  king 

Enwound  him  fold  by  fold,  and  made  him  gray 

And  grayer,  till  himself  became  as  mist  before  her 

Moving  ghostlike  to  his  doom. 

O,  wondrous  transformation !  Wakening 
from  the  awful  dream  of  sin,  she  became  a 
horror  to  herself.  In  that  moment,  con- 
scious of  great  love  for  the  injured  king, 
repentance  swept  over  her  like  the  billows 
of  the  sea. 

Now  I  see  thee,  what  thou  art! 

Thou  art  the  highest  and  most  human,  too; 

Not  Launcelot,  nor  another! 

Is  there  none  will  tell  the  king  I  love  him,  though 

so  late, 

Now — ere  he  goes  to  that  great  battle?    None. 
Myself  must  tell  him  in  that  purer  life, 
But  now  it  were  too  daring. 

Sacrificial  love  hath  redeemed  the  soul 
from  sin.  Forgiven,  she  pours  her  life  into 
good  deeds,  and  when  years  have  passed, 
abbess,  as  once  she  had  been  queen,  she 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

passed  to  "  where  beyond  these  voices  there 
is  peace." 

Then  sounds  the  note  of  final  victory. 
Adversity,  war,  ingratitude,  the  faithless- 
ness of  friends  within,  the  hatred  of  ene- 
mies without — all  these  had  conspired  to 
break  the  king's  spirit.  But,  rising  triumph- 
ant over  every  enemy,  this  flower  of  kings, 
this  knightliest  of  all  brave  men,  snatches 
faith  from  faithlessness,  keeps  love  midst 
hate,  meets  dishonor  with  forgiveness. 
When  the  last  battle  has  been  fought,  and 
friends  and  enemies  lie  together  upon  the 
field,  and  the  Round  Table  hath  fallen,  and 
the  great  king  passes  toward  death,  the 
valiant  knight  Sir  Bors  breaks  down  and 
cries : 

Ah,  my  Lord  Arthur!  Whither  shall  I  go? 

Where  shall  I  hide  my  forehead  and  my  eyes? 

For  now  I  see  the  true  old  times  are  dead. 

But,  clothed  with  confidence,  majesty, 
and  beauty,  King  Arthur  answers  that 
death  does  not  end  all. 

The  old  order  changes,  yielding  place  to  new, 
And  God  fulfills  Himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world; 
By  prayer  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God. 
175 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Then  passing  into  the  barge,  where  the 
three  queens  wait  to  give  him  guidance  and 
convoy  homeward,  he  who  "came  from  the 
great  deep  to  the  great  deep  was  gone/' 
And  the  knight,  fallen  on  his  knees  and 
listening,  heard  sounds — 

As  if  some  fair  city  were  one  voice, 
Around  a  king  returning  from  his  wars. 

Though  our  libraries  include  the  books  of 
earth's  most  gifted  children,  yet  no  great 
book  or  author  better  illustrates  the  princi- 
ple that  the  great  poet  must  first  of  all  be 
a  great  man.  What  Tennyson  wrote,  he 
first  was.  As  those  knights  by  looking 
into  King  Arthur's  face  borrowed  a  momen- 
tary likeness  of  their  king,  so  Tennyson, 
lingering  long  before  his  divine  Master,  bor- 
rowed the  likeness  of  that  strong  Son  of 
God  of  whom  he  sang.  Grandly  beautiful 
the  closing  hours  of  his  illustrious  career! 
The  dying  poet  opened  his  Shakespeare  to 
those  tender  lines  in  "Cymbeline,"  "Hang 
thou  like  fruit,  my  soul,  till  the  tree  dies." 
Talking  to  his  physician  about  death,  he 
exclaimed,  "What  shadows  this  life  is,  and 
how  men  cling  to  what  is,  after  all,  but  a 
small  part  of  the  great  world's  life." 
176 


Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 

Knowing  of  the  poet's  interest  in  the  lot  of 
lowly  men,  the  physician  told  him  of  a  vil- 
lager ninety  years  old  who  had  so  pined  to 
see  his  invalid  wife  that  they  carried  her  to 
his  bedside.  "Come  soon/'  said  the  old 
man,  and  soon  after  passed  away  himself. 
The  poet  murmured,  "True  faith,"  and 
then  himself  sank  into  death's  sleep.  Strik- 
ing indeed  the  son's  account  of  that  dying 
scene:  "On  the  bed  a  figure  of  breathing 
marble,  flooded  and  bathed  in  the  light  of 
the  full  moon  streaming  through  the  oriel 
window;  the  moonlight,  the  majestic  figure 
as  he  lay  there,  drawing  thicker  breath, 
irresistibly  brought  to  our  minds  his  own 
'Passing  of  Arthur.'  And  when  the  poet 
breathed  his  last,  the  old  pastor,  with  raised 
hands,  said,  'Truly,  Lord  Tennyson,  God 
hath  taken  you,  who  made  you  a  prince  of 


177 


VII 

A  Study  of  Browning's  "Saul"  — The 
Tragedy  of  the  Ten-Talent  Men  and 
their  Recovery 


"To  make  such  a  soul, 
Such  a  body,  and  then  such  an  earth  for  insphering 

the  whole? 
And  doth  it  not  enter  my  mind  (as  my  warm  tears 

attest) 
These  good  things  being  given,  to  go  on,  and  give 

one  more,  the  best? 
Ay,  to  save  and  redeem  and  restore  him,  maintain 

at  the  height 
This    perfection,  —  succeed    with    life's    dayspring, 

death's  minute  of  night? 
Interpose  at  the  difficult  minute,  snatch    Saul    the 

mistake, 
Saul   the   failure,  the  ruin  he  seems  now, — and  bid 

him  awake 
From  the  dream,  the  probation,  the  prelude,  to  find 

himself  set 
Clear  and  safe   in  new  light  and  new  life,— a  new 

harmony  yet 
To  be  run,  and  continued,  and  ended— who  knows? 

—or  endure! 
The  man  taught  enough,  by  life's  dream,  of  the  rest 

to  make  sure; 
By  the  pain-throb,  triumphantly  winning  intensified 

bliss, 
And   the    next  world's  reward  and  repose,  by  the 

struggles  of  this." 

— Poetical  Works  of  Robert  Browning, 

Vol.  Ill,  pp.  120,  121 


VII 

A  STUDY  OF  BROWNING'S  ''SAUL" — THE 

TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TEN-TALENT  MEN 
AND  THEIR  RECOVERY 

For  divers  reasons  the  tragedy  of  Saul 
seems  to  have  fascinated  the  thought  of  our 
greatest  poets,  dramatists,  and  musicians. 
In  pitying  admiration,  Browning  in  his 
poem,  Stanley  in  his  story,  and  Chopin  in 
his  "Funeral  March,"  have  enshrined  the 
young  king  in  a  mausoleum  nobler  than  one 
built  of  marble.  With  a  certain  mournful 
awe  these  admirers  watch  this  richly  gifted 
youth  moving  from  the  summit  of  greatness 
and  power  down  to  his  wreckage  and  final 
ruin.  Romantic  indeed  this  adventurous 
and  many-colored  career  that  began  with 
the  shepherd's  cot,  passed  swiftly  to  the 
king's  palace,  and  ended  midst  the  shock 
and  thunder  of  battle!  A  born  king  and 
leader  among  men,  he  enters  the  scene 
clothed  with  that  irresistible  fascination  that 
only  the  greatest  possess.  Like  Agamem- 
181 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

non,  he  was  a  king  who  stood  head  and 
shoulders  above  his  people.  Like  Theseus, 
he  was  a  soldier  whose  sword  was  in  his 
hand  by  day,  whose  spear  touched  his  pil- 
low by  night.  Like  Napoleon,  with  his  old 
guard,  about  young  Saul  there  stood  a  band 
of  noble  youths  of  brave  beauty  and  brawny 
stature.  If  Lancelot,  the  leader  of  King 
Arthur's  knights,  lost  his  leadership  through 
treachery  to  friendship,  Saul  also  discrowned 
himself  because  he  was  a  king  untrue  to  his 
people,  a  soldier  false  to  the  chivalry  of 
arms,  a  friend  who  betrayed  his  friend. 
Crowned  king  at  a  time  when  one  swift  blow 
would  have  scattered  his  foes  and  united 
his  friends,  like  Hamlet,  Saul  stood  midway 
between  his  duty  and  his  task,  and  indeci- 
sion slew  him. 

Watching  this  fascinating  human  figure, 
with  all  its  splendid  gifts,  moving  swiftly 
from  virtue  to  vice,  from  the  palace  to  the 
slave  market,  until  his  faculties  are  all 
entangled  and  confused,  oft  does  the  heart 
long,  but  long  in  vain,  to  hear  "the  exulting 
and  triumphant  cry  of  a  strong  man  coming 
to  himself  and  saying,  T  will  arise.'  ' 

Pathetic  indeed  the  story  of  his  decline 
182 


Browning's  "Saul" 

and  fall.  When  pride  had  engendered  ^sel- 
fishness, vanity  brought  injealousy.  One 
day,  after  young  David  had  vanquished  the 
boasted  champion  of  an  invading  army,  the 
hero's  appearance  in  the  street  was  greeted 
with  the  cheers  and  exultant  shouts  of  the 
multitude.  In  that  hour  King  Saul  feared 
a  shepherd  boy,  and  hurling  his  javelin  at 
the  youth,  met  the  contempt  of  all  brave 
men.  But  as  the  sun  disappears  when  the 
eye  is  blind,  so  Saul  tampered  with  his  con- 
science, until,  for  this  fallen  king,  God  was 
as  though  He  were  not.  Like  a  mariner 
who  has  lost  both  sun  and  compass,  bewil- 
dered, Saul  turned  toward  a  fortune-teller, 
who  pondered  the  leaves  in  the  bottom  of  a 
cup,  and  studied  beads  and  amulets  for  a 
great  man's  guidance.  Soon  this  prince, 
who  in  his  strength  had  planned  the  move- 
ments of  an  army,  asked  a  wandering  gypsy 
to  determine  the  path  in  which  his  faltering 
feet  and  shattered  intellect  should  walk. 
Therefore,  when  the  piteous  tragedy  ended, 
men  cried  out,  "How  are  the  mighty  fal- 
len!" Sad,  indeed,  the  ruin  of  this  great 
king!  It  is  some  monarch  of  the  forest 
rearing  its  lofty  branches  high  above  the 
183 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

far-reaching  woods,  to  be  stricken  by  the 
thunderbolt  and  left  black  and  scarred  and 
ruined.  It  is  the  Parthenon,  once  crowned 
with  matchless  beauty,  become  a  mere  shell 
of  its  former  self,  a  heap,  and  desolation.  It 
is  some  great  ship,  falling  upon  cruel  rocks 
that  gore  its  sides,  while  from  the  yeasty, 
spray-darkened  beach  there  rises  the  bitter 
cry,  "A  wreck,  a  wreck!"  When  men  bore 
the  body  of  the  king  into  the  market-place, 
they  wept  indeed,  but  not  because  Saul  had 
been  overtaken  by  death.  Their  hot  tears 
fell  because  they  remembered  the  brave 
boy,  once  so  pure  and  stainless  and  true, 
who  had  made  his  career  to  be,  not  a  tri- 
umph, but  a  tragedy;  whose  soul  at  last 
seemed  like  a  palace  devastated  by  fire, 
like  a  rich  harvest  field,  where  the  tornado 
had  made  wide  its  path  of  ruin ! 

The  saddest  chapter  in  literature  is  the 
history  of  our  ten-talent  men.  Lingering 
long  upon  the  career  of  these  sons  of  genius, 
we  turn  from  their  dark  story  with  the  re- 
flection that  often  greatness  seems  to  be  a 
menace,  prosperity  a  peril,  and  position  a 
test  and  strain.  The  scholars  of  Venice  tell 
us  that  the  " mistress  of  the  sea*'  had  her 
184 


Browning's  "Saul" 

vast  treasures,  not  through  a  few  great 
ships,  but  by  a  multitude  of  lesser  vessels. 
And  ours  is  a  world  where  the  richest  car- 
goes of  the  soul  sweep  forward  in  fleets 
made  up  of  those  lesser  craft  named  "two- 
talent  people."  What  great  men  cannot 
do,  average  men  easily  achieve.  A  few 
elect  ones  there  are  who  seem  like  vast 
ships  laden  with  treasures,  upon  whose 
decks  stand  the  harpers  with  their  harps, 
but  at  whose  helms  there  are  no  pilots,  and 
oft  the  galleon  has  gone  down  in  sight  of 
the  harbor  where  the  smaller  craft  have 
peacefully  landed  their  treasures  and  re- 
ceived welcome  and  victory. 

In  that  fascinating  study  called  "The 
Makers  of  Modern  English"  the  first  six 
chapters  tell  the  story  of  six  sons  of  genius 
and  greatness.  Strangely  enough,  the  career 
of  four  of  these  richly  dowered  men  was  a 
tragedy,  that  of  Keats  an  unfulfilled  proph- 
ecy, while  that  of  Scott  alone  was  an  un- 
marred  triumph.  Here  is  Burns,  of  whom 
Carlyle  asks:  "Will  a  courser  of  the  sun 
work  softly  in  the  harness  of  a  trade  horse? 
His  hoofs  are  of  fire,  his  path  is  in  the 
heavens,  his  task  bringing  light  to  all  lands. 
185 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Will  he  lumber  over  mud  roads,  dragging 
ale  for  earthly  appetites  from  door  to 
door?"  Yet  such  a  tragedy  was  the  life  of 
Burns !  He  was  the  child  of  supreme  genius. 
After  a  century  his  songs  are  still  the  richest 
treasure  of  a  nation  that  has  immeasurable 
wealth.  Himself  a  song-intoxicated  man, 
with  melody  he  hath  bewitched  all  peoples. 
Striking  a  new  note  in  English  literature, 
this  fresh,  buoyant,  impassioned  singer 
enters  the  scene  like  an  ethereal  visitor  from 
some  celestial  realm.  Of  his  amazing  intel- 
lect, Walter  Scott  said  Burns  had  condensed 
the  essence  of  a  thousand  novels  in  these 
four  lines: 

Had  we  never  loved  so  blindly, 
Had  we  never  loved  so  kindly, 
Never  met  and  never  parted, 
We  had  ne'er  been  broken-hearted. 

What  Raphael  is  in  color,  what  Mozart 
is  in  music,  that  Burns  is  in  song.  With 
his  sweet  words  "the  mother  soothes  her 
child,  the  lover  wooes  his  bride,  the  soldier 
wins  his  victory/'  His  biographer  says  his 
genius  was  so  overmastering  that  the  news 
of  Burns's  arrival  at  the  village  inn  drew 
farmers  from  their  fields,  and  at  midnight 
186 


Browning's  "Saul" 

wakened  travelers,  who  left  their  beds  to 
listen,  delighted,  until  the  morn. 

One  day  this  child  of  poverty  and  obscu- 
rity left  his  plow  behind,  and  entering  the 
drawing-rooms  of  Edinburgh,  met  Scot- 
land's most  gifted  scholars,  her  noblest 
lords  and  ladies.  Mid  these  scholars,  states- 
men, and  philosophers,  he  blazed  "like  a 
torch  amidst  the  tapers/'  showing  himself 
wiser  than  the  scholars,  wittier  than  the 
humorists,  kinglier  than  the  courtliest.  And 
yet,  in  the  very  prime  of  his  midmanhood, 
Burns  lay  down  to  die,  a  broken-hearted 
man.  He  who  had  sinned  much  suffered 
much,  and  being  the  victim  of  his  own 
folly,  he  was  also  the  victim  of  ingratitude 
and  misfortune.  Bewildered  by  his  debts, 
he  seems  like  an  untamed  eagle  beating 
against  bars  he  cannot  break.  The  last 
time  he  lifted  his  pen  upon  the  page  it  was 
not  to  give  immortal  form  to  some  exqui- 
site lyric  he  had  fashioned,  but  to  beg  a 
friend  in  Edinburgh  for  a  loan  of  ten  pounds 
to  save  him  from  the  terrors  of  a  debtor's 
prison.  At  the  summit  of  his  fame, 
Walter  Scott  said  that  the  most  precious 
treasure  his  memory  possessed  was  associ- 
187 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ated  with  the  moment  when  as  a  boy  he  met 
Robert  Burns  and  looked  into  the  poet's 
eyes,  dark  and  tender,  "the  most  glorious 
eyes'*  he  had  ever  seen.  But  the  last  time 
that  Robert  Burns's  eyes  glowed  they  blazed 
with  anger  against  a  creditor  who  had  come 
to  drag  the  dying  man  from  his  couch  to 
the  prison  cell.  Possessed  by  sorrow  as 
with  an  evil  spirit,  his  dark  hair  streaked 
with  gray  before  its  time,  worn  by  worries, 
wasted  with  fever,  imbittered  by  troubles 
against  which  he  had  bravely  struggled,  but 
struggled  in  vain,  like  Saul,  Burns  fell  upon 
an  untimely  death. 

And  so  this  child  of  sunshine  and  sweet 
song,  with  his  flashing  wit  and  abundant 
laughter,  died  feeling  that  his  sun  was  to 
go  down  mid  clouds  as  black  as  have  ever 
been  woven  out  of  the  warp  and  woof  of 
poverty  and  misfortune.  Yet  he  is  not  one  of 
the  prophets  whom  men  have  first  slain  and 
then  builded  their  sepulcher.  Carlyle  thinks 
Burns  received  more  rather  than  less  of  the 
kindnesses  usually  bestowed  upon  great 
teachers.  For  ours  is  a  world  that  pays 
Socrates  with  a  cup  of  poison,  and  Christ 
with  a  cross.  We  are  told,  too,  that 
188 


Browning's  "Saul" 

Tasso  polished  his  cantos  in  a  madhouse, 
Cervantes  perfected  his  pages  in  a  prison, 
Roger  Bacon  wrought  out  his  principles 
in  a  dungeon,  Locke  was  banished  and 
wrote  his  treatise  on  the  mind  while  shiv- 
ering in  a  Dutch  garret,  and  by  contrast 
with  the  lot  of  other  worthies  Burns  seems 
the  chiW  of  good  fortune.  In  the  last 
analysis  the  blame  is  with  the  poet  himself. 
Not  want  of  good  fortune  without,  but  want 
of  good  guidance  within,  wrecked  this 
youth.  Save  Saul  alone,  history  holds  no 
sadder  tragedy  than  that  of  Burns,  who 
sang  "the  short  and  simple  annals  of  the 
poor,"  songs  that  have  made  this  singer's 
name  immortal. 

But  if  some  explain  Burns's  excesses  and 
sins  by  his  extreme  poverty,  urging  that 
penury  gave  him  "no  shelter  to  grow  ripe 
and  no  leisure  to  grow  wise,"  in  Byron  we 
have  one  in  whom  wealth  was  united  to 
genius,  like  the  costliest  vase  holding  the 
loveliest  flower.  Surely,  poverty  never 
pinched  Byron,  and  certainly  his  intellect 
made  the  path  bright  enough  for  his  young 
feet.  Indeed  he  was  the  first  English 
author  to  conquer  the  admiration  of  the 
189 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Continent.  Goethe  gave  him  a  place  among 
the  foremost.  France  and  Italy  bestowed 
an  admiration  hitherto  reserved  for  Shakes- 
peare alone.  Other  gifts  also  were  his. 
Men  called  Byron  the  handsomest  youth  of 
his  time.  His  beautiful  head,  his  finely 
chiseled  features,  his  face  glowing  with  feel- 
ing like  an  alabaster  lamp  lighted  from 
within,  his  courtly  manners,  lent  him  the 
note  of  distinction,  and  he  had  the  beauty 
of  a  Greek  god.  In  language  of  unrivaled 
force  and  beauty,  he  led  the  revolt  of  the 
common  people  against  the  infamous  court 
of  George  III.  Publishing  his  first  volume, 
he  woke  one  morning  to  find  himself 
famous. 

Yet  this  youth,  so  brave,  so  beautiful, 
dowered  with  gifts  so  rich,  perished  ere  his 
race  was  half  run.  In  a  reckless,  pleasure- 
loving  age,  he  drank  more,  lived  faster,  and 
was  more  reckless  than  any  other  man. 
When  vice  had  disturbed  his  happiness,  sin 
poisoned  his  genius.  Alienated  from  Eng- 
land, he  went  to  the  Continent,  and  entered 
upon  such  escapades  as  unbridled  desires 
alone  suggest.  Soon  Shelley  wrote  home 
that  a  violent  death  was  the  best  thing  to 
190 


Browning's  "Saul" 

be  desired  for  Byron.  The  fever  that  at 
last  consumed  his  body  was  fully  matched 
by  the  remorse  that  preyed  upon  his  mind. 
In  his  dying  hour  the  worm,  the  canker, 
and  the  grief  were  his  alone.  Therefore  he 
likened  himself  to  a  serpent,  girt  about  with 
fire,  that  turns  its  poisoned  fangs  upon  itself 
as  a  means  of  escaping  from  approaching 
flames.  If,  in  his  early  career,  England 
would  have  buried  Byron  in  one  of  the 
favorite  spots  of  her  abbey,  when  at  length 
his  career  ended  in  disgrace,  she  closed  her 
great  temple  against  Byron,  and  his  friends 
bore  his  troubled  dust  to  the  little  church- 
yard at  Hucknall.  When  young  Alfred 
Tennyson  heard  that  Byron  was  dead,  he 
said,  "I  thought  the  world  was  at  an  end/' 
Mourning  for  his  fallen  hero,  Tennyson  took 
up  David's  lament  for  Saul:  "How  are  the 
mighty  fallen !  Perished  are  the  weapons  of 
the  great!" 

When  we  have  noted  that  Poe  starved  and 
shivered  into  the  tramp's  grave  at  thirty- 
nine,  that  Burns  found  the  wolf  at  his  door 
at  thirty-seven,  that  the  fiend  was  gnawing  at 
the  heartstrings  of  Byron  at  thirty-six,  that 
at  thirty  Shelley  passed  beyond  "the  con- 
191 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

tagion  of  the  world's  slow  stain,"  that 
Keats,  "whose  name  is  writ  not  in  water," 
but  in  adamant,  was  dead  at  twenty-five, 
we  must  not  interpret  these  ill-starred  lives 
as  meaning  that  the  history  of  great  poets 
represents  defeat  and  tragedy,  while  the  his- 
tory of  men  great  in  other  departments  of 
life  represents  triumph  and  victory.  If  we 
call  the  roll  of  the  artists,  we  find  that 
Andrea  del  Sarto  had  gifts  so  great  as  to 
lead  many  to  believe  that  he  was  superior 
to  Raphael  himself.  In  his  early  youth  he 
painted  pictures  characterized  by  such 
beauty  and  majesty  of  drawing,  such  rich- 
ness of  color,  as  to  promise  a  supremacy 
altogether  unique.  But  early  in  his  career 
this  youth  passed  under  the  influence  of  a 
beautiful  Jezebel,  left  his  aged  parents  to 
starve,  and  for  gold  sold  his  brush  to 
ignoble  patrons.  When  Francis  I.  advanced 
money  for  certain  pictures,  the  youth  spent 
it  in  riotous  living,  making  no  return  to  his 
benefactor.  Stricken  with  remorse,  he  was 
overtaken  by  a  contagious  disease.  Deserted 
by  the  woman  for  whom  he  had  abandoned 
honor,  fame,  and  friends,  he  perished  in  the 
solitude  of  a  filthy  garret,  and  at  midnight 
192 


Browning's  "Saul" 

was  hastily  carried  forth  to  a  pauper's 
grave. 

But  in  philosophy,  also,  great  men  have 
had  a  like  career.  Here  is  Bacon,  with  his 
noble  birth,  reared  in  a  palace,  educated  at 
court,  and  replying,  almost  as  soon  as  he 
could  speak,  to  the  queen,  asking  how  old 
he  was,  "Two  years  younger  than  your 
Majesty's  happy  reign."  He  garnered  uni- 
versal wisdom.  He  founded  a  new  system 
of  philosophy.  He  ushered  in  our  era  of 
science  and  invention.  But  he  also  added 
the  cunning  of  a  traitor  to  the  wisdom  of  a 
statesman,  and  the  meanness  of  a  slave  to 
the  grasp  of  a  philosopher.  His  soul  has 
been  likened  to  a  marble  palace — bright  in 
its  walls  and  brave  in  its  battlements,  but 
within  foul  of  cellar  and  noisome  of  garret. 

Nor  are  the  tragedies  less  dark  in  other 
realms.  What  a  career  is  that  of  De  Quin- 
cey,  the  essayist.  Early  in  life  he  fell  a 
slave  to  the  opium  habit,  that  shattered  his 
nerves,  darkened  his  reason,  destroyed  his 
happiness  and  home,  and  enfeebled  his 
will.  He  who  once  had  been  master  to 
many  pupils,  leading  on  like  a  pillar  of  fire 
for  brilliancy,  became  a  pillar  of  cloud,  out 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

of  which  leaped  but  intermittent  flashes — 
flashes  not  of  light,  but  of  lightning,  that 
served  only  to  deepen  the  darkness  in  which 
the  great  man  dwelt.  For  De  Quincey 
ended  his  career,  like  Samson,  blind  and 
grinding  corn  in  the  prison  of  those  who 
once  had  been  his  servants. 

Pathetic  the  tragedy  of  great  men  in  the 
realm  of  affairs,  also.  In  his  class  no  man 
of  his  time  even  approached  the  "Little 
Corsican"  in  sheer  weight  of  intellect.  He 
stayed  a  revolution,  conquered  kingdoms, 
made  a  code,  leveled  the  Alps,  invented  a 
system  of  weights  and  measures.  He  was 
so  great  that  single-handed  he  might  have 
set  France  forward  a  half  century  in  the 
march  of  civilization.  But  prosperity  made 
him  proud,  power  made  him  cruel,  and 
moving  swiftly  toward  ruin,  Emerson  says 
he  became  unjust  to  his  generals,  false  to 
his  wife,  blind  to  honor,  until  he  could 
"  steal,  lie,  slander,  drown,  and  poison,  as 
his  interest  demanded/'  Stricken  with 
death  upon  his  lonely  island  home,  he  coolly 
falsified  dates,  facts,  and  characters  to 
heighten  his  fame.  For  the  great  general 
victory  became  defeat. 
194 


Browning's  "Saul" 

Wisdom,  also,  hath  its  tragedy.  Scholars, 
from  Solomon  to  Goethe,  have  gotten  wis- 
dom and  knowledge,  but  too  often  also 
have  indulged  themselves  in  sin,  until 
their  making  of  books  seems  a  vanity,  and 
all  their  days  days  of  disgrace  —  whose 
biographers,  like  Noah's  sons,  must  needs 
walk  backward  to  hide  the  hero's  naked- 
ness. And  here  are  the  sons  of  wealth,  who 
have  used  their  superior  strength  and  power 
to  thrust  back  from  life's  good  things  those 
who  are  inferior  and  weak,  and  who,  going 
toward  the  throne,  have  left  behind  their 
charming  modesty;  and  becoming  proud  and 
imperious,  have  ruined  happiness  and  made 
life  a  tragedy.  And  here  are  the  daughters 
of  beauty,  from  Cleopatra  to  the  modern 
"lily,"  whose  gitt  was  loveliness,  whose  task 
it  is,  to  lift  men  up  from  the  abyss  and  guide 
them  from  star  to  star,  but  who  have  em- 
broiled men  in  quarrels,  brought  anarchy  into 
the  lives  of  those  who  have  loved  them,  whose 
breath  is  a  pestilence,  whose  affection  is  a 
flame,  who  have  been  to  men  not  "the  shade 
of  a  rock  in  a  weary  land, ' '  but  the  sharpness 
of  a  rock  to  sink  goodly  ships.  Oh,  the 
story  of  greatness  is  one  long,  black,  pite- 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ous  tragedy!  Happy,  thrice  happy,  those 
who  are  the  children  of  one  talent  or  two  or 
three,  who  dwell  neither  in  the  arctic  zone 
of  chill  penury  nor  the  heated  zone  of  the 
tropics,  but  rather  in  the  temperate  zone, 
where  the  average  man  doth  abide,  fulfilling 
the  world's  work,  above  whose  bier  rises  no 
mournful  lament,  "How  are  the  mighty 
fallen!"  and  "Perished  are  the  weapons  of 
the  great!" 

Difficult  indeed  the  task  of  explaining  the 
wreck  and  ruin  of  these  sons  of  greatness. 
In  the  noblest  plea  that  one  man  of  genius 
has  ever  made  for  another,  Carlyle  reminds 
us  that  the  orbit  of  a  planet  is  large  and 
that  of  a  circus  ring  small,  and  that  a  deflec- 
tion of  a  few  inches  from  the  small  ring 
would  be  greater  in  proportion  to  its  diameter 
than  for  the  planet  to  wander  thousands  of 
miles  from  its  vast  orbit.  "Granted,"  says 
Carlyle  of  Burns,  "the  ship  comes  into  har- 
bor with  shroud  and  tackle  damaged ;  the 
pilot  is  blameworthy ;  he  has  not  been  all- 
wise  or  all-powerful,  but  to  know  how 
blameworthy  tell  us  first  whether  his  voyage 
has  been  round  the  globe  or  merely  for  a 
yachting  trip  across  some  sequestered  lake." 
196 


Browning's  "Saul" 

But  Byron's  plea  is  very  bold.  He  affirms 
that  greatness  sanctifies  whatever  it  does; 
that  genius  is  exempt  from  moral  laws  that 
are  binding  upon  dull  people,  that  his 
superior  gifts  lend  the  possessor  a  chartered 
right  to  gratify  his  desires  and  passions  in 
whatsoever  garden  of  pleasure.  This  plea 
would  make  Burns  blameless  for  clothing 
drinking  songs  with  matchless  beauty.  It 
frees  Del  Sarto  from  condemnation  for  hang- 
ing immortal  wreaths  upon  the  forehead  of 
Satanic  creatures,  and  discharges  the  French 
school  from  responsibility  for  clothing  the 
worst  sentiments  in  the  loveliest  language. 
But  in  moments  of  sober  reflection,  thought- 
ful minds  will  affirm  that  as  men  go  toward 
greatness  they  go  toward  responsibility ;  that 
when  God  gives  the  youth  power  and  maiden 
beauty,  He  takes  vows  from  them;  that  fol- 
lies quite  excusable  in  a  one-talent  man  are 
monstrous  in  the  children  of  ten  talents ;  that 
by  virtue  of  supremacy  the  children  of 
strength  and  genius  are  pledged  to  special 
honor  and  purity  and  justice  and  truth  in  the 
inner  parts.  All  wise  men  must  hold  with 
John  Milton  that  greatness  is  a  pledge  to 
goodness.  Explaining  his  vast  intellectual 
197 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

achievements,  Milton  said:  "He  who  would 
write  a  heroic  poem  must  first  live  a  heroic 
life.  I  am  not  one  who  has  disgraced  beauty 
of  sentiment  by  deformity  of  conduct,  or  the 
maxims  of  the  free  man  by  the  actions  of  the 
slave,  but  by  the  grace  of  God  I  have  kept 
my  life  unsullied.  I  take  God  to  witness 
that  in  all  those  places  where  so  many  things 
are  considered  lawful  I  have  lived  sound  and 
untouched  from  any  profligacy  and  vice, 
having  this  thought  perpetually  with  me, 
that  though  I  might  escape  the  eyes  of  men, 
I  certainly  could  not  escape  the  eyes  of 
God." 

Having  confessed  the  overthrow  of  the 
sons  of  greatness,  Robert  Browning  medi- 
tates the  soul's  recovery  also.  The  majesty 
of  its  thoughts,  the  splendor  of  its  imagery, 
the  simplicity  and  sweetness  of  its  rhythmic 
flow  make  his  "Saul"  one  of  the  great- 
est of  Browning's  poems.  In  that  hour 
when  sin  had  bewildered  the  king's  in- 
tellect and  melancholy  enfeebled  his  will, 
growing  desperate,  Saul  denied  himself  food 
and  drink  and  withdrew  into  his  innermost 
tent.  When  three  days  and  nights  had 
come  and  gone,  with  no  sign  of  life  from 
198 


Browning's  "Saul" 

the  royal  sufferer,  his  servants  in  fright- 
ened whispers  talked  much  upon  death. 
They  dared  not  cross  the  forbidden  thresh- 
old. Soon  his  faithful  general  grew  des- 
perate. Having  watched  the  long  night 
through,  when  morning  came  he  bethought 
himself  that  perhaps  young  David  might 
seek  entrance  in  the  sacred  name  of 
friendship.  For  all  too  much  this  king 
had  lived  alone.  A  little  solitude  nur- 
tures strength,  but  continued  solitude 
threatens  the  very  center  of  man's  being. 
Of  necessity  the  mountain  peak  that  rises 
above  its  fellows  must  dwell  apart,  and  it  is 
the  peril  of  the  great  that  at  last  they  are 
alone,  none  daring  to  expose  the  strong 
man's  peril  or  lay  bare  his  secret  faults. 
Yet  for  a  thousand  reasons  the  great  have 
special  need  of  sympathy  and  friendship. 
Hours  there  are  when  the  world  reels  be- 
neath man's  feet,  when  trouble  chokes  his 
voice,  and  then  each  Saul  must  lean  upon 
some  bosom  friend.  For  ours  is  a  world 
where  the  fireman  climbing  the  ladder  to 
certain  death  is  strengthened  by  the  cheers 
of  onlookers. 

Entering  the  battle,  the  young  soldier  is 
199 


Great  Books  as  Life-Teachers 

less  afraid  because  of  his  brave  compan- 
ions. Oft  mjmpments  when  sorrow  breaks 
the  heart  one  look  intothe"7ace  of  a  friend 
whose  eyes  are  dim  with  tears  is  worth  all 
gifts  of  gold.  Cicero  says,  "Friendship~can 
make  riches  splendid."  But  Friendship 
worketh  other  miracles.  When  winter's  frost 
makes  great  cracks  in  the  asphalt  street, 
workmen  force  a  tongue  of  flame  upon  the 
injured  parts,  and  soon  the  warm  glow 
unites  parts  that  before  were  separated. 
And  it  is  given  to  love's  warm  flame  to 
repair  the  grievous  injuries  that  sin  hath 
wrought  in  the  soul.  In  the  olden  time, 
when  the  sufferer  touched  the  hem  of 
Christ's  garment,  electric  life  leaped  from 
Saviour  to  sufferer.  Then  one  touch  of  the 
hand,  a  glance,  a  kindly  deed,  the  sympa- 
thetic note — medicines  these  that  heal  the 
broken  heart.  Browning  would  have  us 
believe  that  the  recovery  of  every  Saul  be- 


gins  with    these   words,       In   my   darkest. 


hour  there  came  a  friend." 


Standing  at  the  door,  beyond  which  lay 
the  broken-hearted  king,  David  pondered 
what  form  of  message  he  should  bring. 
Times  there  are  when  silence  is  a  medicine. 

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Browning's  "Saul" 

In  other  hours  speech  hath  its  minis- 
try. If  David  feared  not  his  battle  with 
Goliath,  he  trembled  exceedingly  as  he 
began  his  struggle  to  recover  Saul's  soul. 
Taking  his  harp  in  his  hand,  he  breathed  a 
prayer  that  God  would  teach  him  the  min- 
istry of  sweet  song.  If  the  other  arts  can 
inspire  and  instruct,  music  can  redeem  and 
save.  As  the  fine  arts  go  away  from  God's 
throne  they  lose  their  flexibility  and  take  on 
forms  hard  and  permanent.  Architecture  is 
the  lowest  of  the  fine  arts;  it  is  most  perma- 
nent. Sculpture  is  higher,  but  the  statue 
is  cold,  having  form  alone.  To  form  paint- 
ing adds  color,  and  breathes  warm  tints  of 
life.  Literature  is  a  higher  art,  using  words 
for  colors.  But  music  is  builded  of  breath 
alone  and  dies  with  the  vibrating  air.  The 
least  permanent  art,  it  is  also  the  highest. 
If  worship  begins  with  the  foundations 
of  the  cathedral,  it  ends  with  the  song 
that  is  a  golden  chariot  upon  which  the 
soul  rides  forth  to  meet  its  God.  On  that 
Christmas  night  the  shepherds  said  that 
Christ  was  born  to  sound  of  angelic  music. 
And  if  the  soul  enters  the  earthly  scene  mid 
melodious  notes,  the  dying  man  also  asks  to 

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Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

pass  away  while  some  sweet  song  wafts  him 
home  to  heaven.  Richter  says  "music  re- 
stores childhood/'  In  the  hour,  therefore, 
when  Saul  was  drear  and  stark,  dumb  and 
deaf,  David  tuned  his  harp,  took  off  the 
lilies  that  twined  its  chords,  and  sang  of 
love  and  home  and  heaven,  sang  of  God's 
mercy  that  forgives  and  saves. 

Impressive  indeed,  that  scene  when 
David  stood  before  the  fallen  king,  ply- 
ing him  by  light  and  darkness,  by  hope 
and  fear,  by  the  memories  of  the  past, 
by  the  hopes  of  the  future,  rebuking  Saul, 
fighting  him,  controlling,  and  at  last  con- 
quering him  by  truths  divine.  Recalling 
the  days  when  Saul's  heart  was  young, 
David  sang  the  song  with  which  the  shep- 
herd calls  his  flock,  and  carried  the  dark- 
ened king  back  to  well-remembered  scenes. 
He  sang  the  harvest  song,  and  brought  back 
the  days  when  the  youth  had  led  the  reapers 
into  the  fields  of  golden  grain.  He  re- 
hearsed the  events  of  war,  the  coming  of  an 
invading  host,  the  tramp  of  armed  men, 
the  hours  when  Saul,  the  leader,  buckled  on 
his  armor,  the  fierce  shock  of  the  battle,  and 
the  moment  of  final  victory.  Justifying  the 

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Brewing's  "Saul" 

ways  of  God  to  man,  he  reminded  Saul  that 
trouble  hath  its  ministry  and  suffering  its 
mercy;  that  the  stroke  of  the  lightning,  not 
less  than  the  falling  dew,  nurtures  the 
sheaves  of  harvest ;  that  the  sweetest  per- 
fume comes  from  bruised  flowers;  that  if 
the  palm  tree  dies,  its  dates  will  live  to  sup- 
port men  crossing  life's  desert,  and  if  old 
age  is  a  winter  that  strips  the  trees  of 
leaves,  the  leaves  fall  only  to  lend  a  lovelier 
luster  to  the  boughs  of  May.  Therefore, 
good  deeds  done,  truth  sown  as  seeds,  shall 
rise  again  in  new  harvests  of  beauty.  And 
having  plied  Saul  by  the  memories  of  child- 
hood and  youth,  by  his  ambitions  and 
victories,  his  temptations  and  sufferings,  his 
prayers  and  tears,  suddenly  David  swings 
wide  for  him  the  door  of  immortality,  and 
reminds  this  man,  with  his  sorrow  and 
shame  and  failure,  that  through  God's  good 
mercy  the  immortal  life  shall  repair  the  :, 
defeats  of  the  life  that  is.  An  eternal  morn 
•hall  succeed  death's  brief  night.  Saul, 
now  a  ruin  and  a  failure,  shall  awake  to 
new  light  and  new  life  and  endure. 


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Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

By  the  pain  throb  triumphantly  winning  intensified 

bliss 
And  the  next  world's  reward  and  repose  by  struggles 

in  this. 

And  then,  because  David  believes  that  the 

Acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ, 
Accepted  by  the  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  world  and  out  of  it, 

he  points  this  baffled,  wounded,  fainting 
king  to  that  mysterious  double  star  shining 
forth  in  man's  dark  night.  "Would  I  suffer 
for  him  I  love?"  exclaims  Browning. 
"Then  so  will  God,  so  will  God." 

O  Saul,  it  shall  be 

A  face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee,  a  man  like  to 

me 
Thou  shah  love  and  be  loved  by  forever! 

A  hand  like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee, 

See  the  Christ  stand! 

Behold  the  Friend  Divine,  who  is  abroad, 
recovering  men  from  ruin  and  defeat. 
Therefore  hope  thou  in  Christ!  His  love 
can  soften  the  hardest  heart,  forgive  the 
blackest  sin,  can  redeem  the  darkest  tragedy 
unto  triumph  and  victory. 


204 


VIII 

The  Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond,  and 
the  Dawn  of  an  Era  of  Friendship  be- 
tween Science  and  Religion 


In  his  brief  life  we  saw  him  pass  through  two  of 
the  greatest  trials  to  which  character  can  be  exposed. 
We  watched  him,  our  fellow-student  and  not  yet 
twenty-three,  surprised  by  a  sudden  and  a  fierce 
fame.  Crowds  of  men  and  women  in  all  the  great 
cities  of  our  land  hung  upon  his  lips,  innumerable 
lives  opened  their  secrets  to  him,  and  made  him 
aware  of  his  power  over  them.  When  his  first  book 
was  published,  he,  being  then  about  thirty-three, 
found  another  world  at  his  feet;  the  great  of  the  land 
thronged  him;  his  social  opportunities  were  bound- 
less; and  he  was  urged  by  the  chief  statesman  of  our 
time  to  a  political  career.  This  is  the  kind  of  trial 
which  one  has  seen  wither  some  of  the  finest  charac- 
ters, and  distract  others  from  the  simplicity  and  reso- 
lution of  their  youth.  He  passed  through  it  unscathed; 
it  neither  warped  his  spirit  nor  turned  him  from  his 
accepted  vocation  as  a  teacher  of  religion. 

Again,  in  the  end  of  his  life,  he  was  plunged  to  the 
opposite  extreme.  For  two  long  years  he  not  only 
suffered  weakness  and  excruciating  pain,  but  what 
must  have  been  more  trying  to  a  spirit  like  his,  accus- 
tomed all  his  manhood  to  be  giving,  helping,  and  lead- 
ing, he  became  absolutely  dependent  upon  others. 
This  also  he  bore  unspoiled,  and  we  who  had  known 
him  from  the  beginning  found  him  at  the  end  the 
same  humble,  unselfish,  and  cheerful  friend  whom  we 
loved  when  we  sat  together  on  the  benches  at  college. 
— The  Life  of  Henry  Druminondtpp.  /,  2. 


VIII 

THE  MEMOIRS  OF  HENRY  DRUMMOND,  AND 
THE  DAWN  OF  AN  ERA  OF  FRIENDSHIP 
BETWEEN  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

Our  age  has  been  sadly  injured  by  the 
warfare  between  theology  and  science.  For 
some  cause,  reason  and  faith  have  assumed 
the  attitude  of  enemies,  turning  the  world 
into  a  battlefield,  and  making  life  one  long 
tournament.  Fierce  and  bitter  has  been 
the  strife.  Often  the  very  skies  have 
seemed  to  rain  pamphlets  of  attack  and  de- 
fense. A  thousand  times  the  skeptics  have 
announced  the  Waterloo  of  Christianity  and 
preached  the  funeral  sermon  of  the  Bible, 
and  a  thousand  times  not  Christianity,  but 
its  enemy,  has  gone  the  way  to  the  grave- 
yard. When  the  scholar  reads  those 
volumes  of  President  White  called  "The 
History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  and 
Theology/'  he  is  conscious  of  the  convic- 
tion that  if  theologians  have  been  strangely 
207 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ignorant  of  the  laws  of  biology,  chemistry, 
and  physics,  scientists  have  been  equally 
ignorant  of  the  laws  of  self-consciousness, 
intuition,  and  spiritual  vision.  Carlyle  and 
Maurice  were  seers,  and  Huxley  and  Tyn- 
dall  were  scientists,  but  when  a  scientist 
fronts  a  seer,  straightway  the  sword  flies 
from  its  scabbard  and  conversation  becomes 
a  tournament. 

When  some  Darwin  drops  Carlyle's 
"Sartor  Resartus,"  he  exclaims,  "It  is 
all  mist!"  When  some  Carlyle  lays  aside 
Darwin's  volume,  he  exclaims,  "It  is  all 
mud!"  "You  theists  cannot  think!" 
asserts  some  Spencer.  "You  scientists  can- 
not aspire  or  pray!"  returns  some  Mar- 
tineau.  Professor  Huxley  had  a  "fine 
frenzy"  for  facts,  and  in  The  Fortnightly 
Review  made  a  study  of  what  he  called 
"The  Bedevilment  of  the  Gadarene  Swine," 
asserting  that  the  Bible  includes  many  errors 
of  science  and  history,  and  falls  with  these 
errors,  to  which  his  opponent  made  answer 
that  hundreds  of  years  after  Moses  made 
his  mistake  as  to  the  sun  moving  around 
the  earth  scientists  were  still  teaching  that 
the  world  rested  on  an  elephant's  back,  the 
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Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

elephant  on  four  turtles,  the  turtles  on  mid- 
air, and  that  the  history  of  the  blunders  of 
scientists  through  the  centuries  would  be  a 
volume  ten  times  as  thick  as  the  history  of 
the  exploded  theories  in  the  realm  of  ethics 
and  morals.  When  President  White  ended 
his  volume  on  the  centuries  of  warfare  be- 
tween scientists  and  theologians,  he  might 
have  told  us  a  wonder  tale — how  two  ene- 
mies of  the  olden  time  were  wondrous 
strange,  in  that  one  wore  a  hat  so  large  as 
to  hide  the  sky,  while  the  seven-leagued 
boots  of  the  other  were  so  big  that  he  could 
not  see  the  earth.  Neither  science  nor 
theology  is  infallible.  Perhaps  the  mis- 
takes of  the  one  have  been  fully  equalled  by 
the  mistakes  of  the  other.  Limited  to  the 
realm  of  the  senses,  science  has  its  frontier 
lines.  But  the  queen  of  the  sciences  also 
has  her  limitations — severe  and  exacting. 
Meanwhile,  through  all  the  tumult  and  din 
of  the  fierce  discussion, 

"The  little  birds  sang  east,  the  little  birds  sang  west, 
And  I  smiled  to  think  God's  greatness 
Flowed  around  our  incompleteness,  ^ 

Round  our  restlessness — His  rest." 


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Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Among  the  prophets  of  the  new  era  of 
friendship  between  science  and  religion  let 
us  include  the  name  of  Professor  Drummond. 
This  scientist  loved  his  scalpel  and  micro- 
scope, but  he  also  loved  his  mother's  Bible. 
Loving  to  observe  and  analyze,  he  also 
loved  to  hope  and  pray.  Being  at  once  sci- 
entist and  Christian,  he  believed  that  law 
was  love  and  love  was  law.  "Whom  God 
hath  crowned,  man  may  not  discrown/' 
and  now  that  he  hath  passed  beyond  the 
veil  we  all  do  see  that  Professor  Drum- 
mond was  a  prophet  of  reconciliation  and 
hath  a  place  among  our  great  leaders.  Tire- 
lessly did  the  reverent  scholar  study  his 
Danvin,  Wallace,  and  Spencer,  and  all  those 
specialists  who  have  scrutinized  the  world 
of  matter.  But  he  also  loved  his  Plato 
and  Paul  and  Kant,  and  with  them  explored 
the  realms  of  mind.  He  believed  indeed 
in  clods  and  paving-stones.  He  also  knew 
that  a  thought  is  just  as  real  a  thing  as  a 
cannon  ball ;  that  an  aspiration  is  a  force  as 
truly  as  is  the  bullet.  He  knew  that  the 
clod  could  grow  the  violet  or  anemone,  and 
he  also  knew  that  a  thought  could  nourish 
generous  deeds  and  heroic  purposes  that  will 

210 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

endure  when  clods  have  dissolved  and  pav- 
ing-stones become  dust. 

Not  four  years  have  passed  by  since  Pro- 
fessor Drummond  visited  the  colleges  of 
this  New  World.  Those  whose  good  for- 
tune it  was  to  hear  Mr.  Drummond  will 
recall  the  patrician  face  and  form,  the  finely 
cut  features,  the  countenance  suffused  with 
solar  light,  the  great,  rich,  wonderful  soul 
throbbing  and  blushing  behind  its  defenses 
of  flesh  and  cuticle.  He  seemed  what  the 
lower  class  men  in  his  university  called  him, 
the  Prince.  In  his  addresses  to  college  stu- 
dents the  author  of  "  Natural  Law  in  the 
Spiritual  World"  stood  forth  the  reconciler 
of  science  and  faith. 

The  laws  of  light  and  heat  and  gravity 
upon  one  side  of  a  river  are  identical  with 
those  laws  upon  the  farther  shore.  In 
his  argument  Mr.  Drummond  asserted 
that  the  soul  in  its  critical  hours  is  con- 
trolled by  the  laws  of  God  as  truly  as  suns 
and  planets  that  sweep  forward  under  the 
embrace  of  physical  laws.  While  this  seer 
and  scientist  spake,  how  easy  to  be  a  scien- 
tist in  the  realm  that  is  seen!  How  easy, 
also,  to  be  a  Christian,  toward  the  realm 

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Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

that  is  unseen!  At  the  noblest  vantage 
point  in  Paris  stands  the  Arch  de  Triomphe, 
a  central  point  to  which  all  streets  converge. 
And  while  this  gifted  man  reasoned  of  the 
world  of  matter  and  the  world  of  mind,  men 
felt  that  all  the  paths  of  faith  and  science 
converge  toward  Jesus  Christ.  If  the  physi- 
cists moved  along  the  pathway  of  matter, 
Drummond  was  found  walking  in  the  way 
with  them.  If  the  Christian  moved  along 
the  pathway  of  faith,  lo!  Drummond  was 
found  walking  in  the  way  with  him !  Recall- 
ing that  hour,  scientist  and  Christian  alike 
might  well  say,  "Did  not  our  hearts  burn 
within  us,  as  he  opened  unto  us  the  way, 
the  words,  and  the  works  of  God?" 

If  we  are  to  rightly  estimate  Professor 
Drummond's  contribution  to  modern  knowl- 
edge, we  must  go  back  in  thought  to  the 
conditions  '.that  prevailed  a  generation  ago. 
In  1850,  when  Emerson  and  Carlyle,  Dar- 
win and  Tyndall,  were  young  men,  the  new 
doctrine  of  evolution  began  to  make  wide 
and  deep  the  chasm  between  science  and 
theology,  so  that  the  seer  felt  he  could  not 
pass  over  to  the  scientist,  while  the  scientist 
thought  he  could  not  cross  over  to  the  seer. 

212 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

In  those  days  many  religious  teachers  held 
that  the  Bible  was  a  book  of  geology,  astron- 
omy, and  politics,  as  well  as  a  book  of 
morals;  that  as  yet  scarcely  six  thousand 
summers  had  passed  over  our  earth;  that 
the  story  of  Jonah  and  the  story  of  Adam 
and  Eve  were  sober  history  rather  than 
inspiring  parable,  and  so  far  from  the  Bible 
being  a  book  of  progressive  revelation,  that 
it  was,  verbally  and  literally,  the  book  of 
God. 

Over  against  this  group  of  noble  Puritans, 
who  have  achieved  great  things  for  law  and 
liberty  and  free  institutions,  stood  the 
group  of  men  whose  Bible  was  the  book  of 
nature.  With  a  great,  deep  love  for  things 
seen,  they  studied  rocks  with  the  lichens 
upon  them,  seeds  and  the  shrubs  that 
sprang  therefrom,  while  buds,  birds,  and 
beasts  were  analyzed  and  compared.  Darwin 
went  down  into  the  sea  to  study  its  ooze; 
Tyndall  climbed  the  Matterhorn  to  study 
the  forms  of  water  in  snowflakes  and  ice 
crystal ;  Lyall  and  Miller  read  the  writings 
of  the  rock  pages ;  Spencer  noted  how  bark 
huts  became  marble  houses;  how  the  fig  leaf 
became  a  woolen  garment;  how  the  rude 
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Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

pictures  upon  the  Indian's  blanket  became 
at  last  the  canvas  of  a  great  artist ;  how  the 
king,  who  was  a  Hercules  in  body,  gave 
place  to  Gladstone,  the  Hercules  in  mind; 
how  the  clay  idol  and  the  drum  of  the 
magician  gave  place  to  the  great  cathedral 
and  the  noble  litany. 

In  the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
new  generalization,  everything  was  claimed 
for  the  formula  of  evolution.  The  early 
vagaries  of  those  who  were  intoxicated  with 
the  great  discovery  now  seem  almost  incred- 
ible. Like  the  German  who  had  never  seen 
a  picture  of  an  elephant,  and  therefore 
evolved  one  out  of  his  inner  consciousness, 
so  Professor  Huxley  evolved  his  bathybius. 
This  bathybius  was  said  to  be  a  vast  sheet 
of  gelatin  matter  lying  under  the  ocean  (just 
as  "the  mother"  exists  in  the  vinegar), 
being,  indeed,  the  mother  of  all  things  that 
live  in  land  or  sea  or  sky.  Unfortunately 
the  scientists  with  their  dredging  machines 
soon  discovered  that  "the  bathybius0  had 
no  real  existence,  and  was  as  mythical  as  the 
wooden  horse  of  Homer.  Other  statements 
equally  extreme  tended  to  further  the  preju- 
dice against  materialistic  evolution,  notably 
214 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

the  assertion  that  the  steam  engine,  a  cylin- 
der press,  and  an  "Iliad"  or  a  "Hamlet" 
are  all  latent  in  the  fire-mist  and  the  rain- 
cloud. 

Midway  between  the , theologians  holding 
the  old  views  and  the  scientists  holding  the 
new  views  stood  a  great  body  of  citizens, 
thoughtful  and  scholarly,  who  soon  pro- 
nounced the  old  theology  and  the  new  sci- 
ence alike  untenable.  Men  of  reflection 
felt  that,  in  view  of  the  discoveries  of 
geology,  it  was  asking  too  much  of  reason 
to  believe  that  the  earth  was  made  in  six 
days,  or  to  hold  to  the  cosmogony  of  Gen- 
esis. But  these  citizens  also  felt  that  science 
taxed  their  credulity  too  far  in  making  the 
clod  to  be  the  creator  of  a  violet,  or  a  drop 
of  ooze  from  the  swamp  write  the  ' '  Odyssey' ' 
or  "Iliad."  Children  reading  "The  Ara- 
bian Nights"  may  believe  that  a  magician 
can  call  a  flower,  a  monkey,  and  a  man 
from  his  magic  jug.  But  wise  men  decline 
to  believe  that  force,  even  when  spelled  with 
a  capital  F,  can  plan  the  wing  of  a  bird,  the 
hues  of  a  violet,  the  beauty  of  a  babe,  the 
poem  or  oration  of  sage  or  seer.  A  lump 
of  mud  does  not  become  a  creator  when 
215 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

spelled  with  a  capital  M,  and  God  cannot 
be  expelled  from  His  universe  by  being 
spelled  with  a  small  g. 

When  a  few  years  had  passed  by,  men 
who  were  neither  theologians  nor  scientists, 
like  Tennyson  and  Browning,  Ruskin  and 
Carlyle  and  Emerson,  began  to  make  them- 
selves heard.  "If  man,"  said  Browning, 
"is  buffeted  about  by  fate  and  chance,  if  he 
comes  from  the  earth  and  goes  to  the  earth, 
then  time  is  a  maniac,  scattering  dust  and 
life  a  fury  slinging  flame."  Tennyson 
asserted  that  "if  man  is  to  be  blown  about 
the  desert  dust  or  sealed  within  the  iron 
hills,  then  he  is  a  monster,  a  dream,  a  dis- 
cord, and  dragons  of  the  prime  that  tear 
each  other  in  their  slime  are  mellow  music 
matched  with  him/ '  When  Matthew  Arnold 
discerned  that  morality  seemed  likely  to  fall 
with  the  fall  of  the  religious  sentiment,  he 
straightway  began  to  ascribe  to  the  unknown 
one  after  another  of  the  divine  attributes. 

The  traveler  on  Mount  Rigi  receives  from 
his  guide  a  bit  of  rose-colored  glass  through 
which  the  clouds  glow  and  flame.  But 
should  the  weary  traveler  stretch  out  his 
hand  and  break  off  a  chunk  of  damp  cloud, 
216 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

the  fact  that  the  cloud  was  suffused  with 
light  would  make  it  a  poor  substitute  for 
the  wheaten  loaf.  Considered  as  a  color 
effect,  "the  suffusing  of  morality,  with 
emotion"  is  highly  successful;  considered 
as  a  substitute  for  God,  it  seems  somewhat 
insufficient.  Romanes,  one  of  the  most 
gifted  of  all  the  disciples  of  Darwin,  returned 
to  his  Christian  faith,  and  asserted  that  he 
knew  no  formula  of  evolution  that  did  not 
require  an  infinite  God  to  make  it  workable. 
Evolution  began  to  be  theistic.  Scientists 
used  it  to  describe  God's  way  of  doing 
things.  Men  like  Clerk  Maxwell,  Professor 
Balfour,  Professor  Tait,  Sir  William  Thom- 
son, St.  George  Mivart,  and  Romanes  began 
to  declare  that  science  and  theology  alike 
were  both  right  and  wrong.  As  time  went 
on  it  was  discovered  that  the  young  men  in 
the  colleges  and  universities,  under  the  head 
of  President  McCosh  and  Professor  Le  Conte 
and  John  Fiske,  were  emphasizing  the  words 
"Christian  evolution.0  Lord  Salisbury, 
the  present  premier  of  England,  in  his 
annual  address  as  president  of  the  Asso- 
ciation for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
affirmed  that  the  tendency  of  the  latest  sci- 
217 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ence  was  unequivocally  and  aggressively 
toward  theism,  indeed,  but  also  toward  a 
simple  Christian  faith. 

How  great  is  the  change  that  has  passed 
over  the  world  of  scientific  thought  may  be 
inferred  from  an  authorized  statement  by  a 
well-known  fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
London:  "I  have  known  the  British  associ- 
ation under  forty-one  different  presidents, 
all  leading  men  of  science,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  two  or  three  appointed  on  other 
grounds.  On  looking  over  these  forty-one 
names  I  counted  twenty-one  who  are  men 
of  Christian  belief  and  character,  while 
only  four  disbelieved  in  any  divine  revela- 
tion. These  figures  indicate  that  religious 
faith,  rather  than  unbelief,  has  characterized 
the  leading  men  of  the  association." 

At  the  moment  when  the  thoughts  of  men 
were  busiest  on  the  relation  of  religion  and 
science,  Professor  Drummond  published  his 
first  book,  called  "  Natural  Law  in  the  Spir- 
itual World."  The  essence  of  this  epoch- 
making  volume  is  that  evolution  is  the  su- 
preme word  for  religion,  as  well  as  for  science. 
But  by  evolution  Mr.  Drummond  did  not 
mean  Darwinism,  for  that  is  a  proposition 
218 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

as  yet  unproved;  nor  Spencerianism,  which 
is  as  yet  incomplete ;  nor  Weismanism,  which 
is  in  the  hottest  fires  of  criticism;  but 
evolution  as  a  generic  term,  setting  forth 
God's  way  of  doing  things;  for  this  young 
knight  of  the  new  era  believed  in  God 
with  all  his  heart  and  mind  and  soul  and 
strength. 

When  that  statue,  Venus  de  Milo,  was  un- 
earthed by  a  peasant  plowing  in  the  field, 
men  explained  its  beauty  by  assuming  a 
sculptor  whose  genius  was  fully  equal  to 
such  beauty  wrought  into  the  marble.  And 
behind  the  dim  unknown,  beneath  the 
mountains,  in  the  deep  depths  beyond 
Orion  and  the  Pleiades,  Drummond  saw  the 
garments  of  an  unseen  God,  the  God  of 
unity  and  law  and  love.  He  beheld  the 
Creator  pour  form  and  beauty  into  all  things 
that  are.  He  saw  an  incandescent,  nebulous 
mass,  flinging  off  its  outer  rings,  those  rings 
cooling  into  planetary  systems;  this  red-hot 
earth  put  on  an  outer  crust ;  the  ice-plow 
crush  rocks  into  dust  for  soil ;  in  a  vision 
hour  he  beheld  the  source  of  all  life  breathe 
life  into  matter  dead  hitherto ;  he  heard  the 
Divine  Voice  command  the  soil  to  ascend 
219 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

toward  shrub  and  tree;  animals  also  joined 
the  strange  upward  procession;  afar  off  he 
beheld  the  face  of  our  father  man ;  he  saw 
man  a  rude,  low  savage,  schooled  by  heat 
and  cold  and  hunger,  and  while  he  beheld 
the  savage,  he  threw  away  his  war  club  or 
fashioned  it  into  a  plow  handle.  Imitating 
the  bee  hiving  its  sweets,  a  granary  was 
founded  and  filled.  Inspired  from  above, 
he  saw  the  tepees  give  place  to  cities,  where 
arts,  industries,  laws,  liberty,  religion, 
reigned.  In  an  hour  of  beatific  vision  he 
saw  earth  exhaling  spirits  into  the  open 
heavens,  where  life  went  on  and  men  went 
upward,  increasing  in  knowledge  and  hap- 
piness and  love.  Remembering  that  Christ 
said,  "First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then 
the  full  corn  in  the  ear,"  Drummond 
asserted  that  evolution  was  the  one  supreme 
word  for  religion,  the  greatest  generalization 
our  world  has  ever  known. 

Professor  Drummond  was  scarcely  five  and 
thirty  years  of  age  when  he  placed  the  man- 
uscript of  "Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual 
World"  in  the  hands  of  his  printer  and 
started  to  the  Dark  Continent,  to  write  his 
book  on  "Tropical  Africa/*  When  the  sci- 
220 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

entist  returned  he  found  himself  famous. 
His  book  was  the  most  striking  success  of 
the  year ;  his  fascinating  theories  were  being 
discussed  in  every  great  journal  and  review; 
his  name  had  become  a  household  word  in 
two  continents.  Seldom,  if  ever,  has  a 
philosophical  work  created  so  great  a  sensa- 
tion. Now  that  ten  years  have  passed  by, 
we  know  that  his  pages  have  a  permanent 
fascination.  The  gist  of  the  volume  is  the 
analogy  between  God's  laws  in  the  realm  of 
matter  and  His  laws  in  the  realm  of  spirit. 
The  scholar  noted  that  Huxley  and  Tyndall 
denied  the  possibility  of  spontaneous  life. 
These  scientists  used  heat  to  kill  the  germs 
of  life  in  water,  and  then  sealed  the  water  up 
in  jars.  When  long  time  had  passed,  they 
found  the  water  as  devoid  of  life  as  is  a 
piece  of  ice.  They  asserted  that,  though 
millions  of  years  passed,  a  piece  of  rock  and 
a  drop  of  water  were  absolutely  devoid  of 
power  to  generate  life.  "Science  knows," 
said  Professor  Huxley,  "that  life  comes 
only  from  life." 

Having  noted  that  once  a  plant  is  alive 
it  can  throw  down  its  roots  to  crystals 
and  gases  and  clothe  them  with  the  mys- 

221 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

tery  of  life,  Drummond  also  affirmed  that 
spiritual  life  is  not  spontaneous,  but  is 
breathed  by  God  into  the  soul  of  each  pub- 
lican, or  each  Saul  on  his  way  to  Damascus,* 
and  that  once  touched  with  this  breath  of 
life  and  love,  man  could  clothe  his  every 
thought  and  deed  with  the  mystery  of  this 
new  spiritual  impulse.  Having  justified  the 
great  crisis  of  the  soul  called  repentance 
and  conversion,  as  exhibited  in  some  Luther 
or  Paul,  Drummond  goes  on  to  study  the 
problem  of  degeneration  and  death.  A 
rock  is  dead  because  it  has  no  relation  with 
the  world  outside;  a  plant  has  a  little  life 
because  it  has  its  root ;  a  bird  is  related  to 
the  air  as  well  as  to  earth ;  man  adds  many 
vital  functions.  If  life  is  an  increase  of 
correspondence,  death  is  the  cutting  of  the 
nerves  of  relation.  Cut  off  the  nerve  of 
sight,  and  color  dies;  cut  the  nerve  of  hear- 
ing, and  sound  dies;  cut  the  nerve  of  sensa- 
tion, and  movement  dies;  cut  the  nerve  of 
food,  and  the  last  tie  is  sundered,  and  death 
is  complete.  How  fascinating  Drummond's 
study  of  the  problem  of  culture,  growth, 
parasitism,  classification,  eternal  life!  "If 
the  Bible  shows  how  to  go  to  heaven," 

222 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

nature,   interpreted  by  Drummond,   shows 
"how  the  heaven  goeth." 

Mr.  Drummond's  last  book  is  upon  "The 
Ascent  of  Man."  This  is  a  study  of  the 
human  body,  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made,  through  the  long  processes  of  nature 
and  God.  Drummond  viewed  the  body  as 
an  intricate  and  complicated  sensorium,  a 
delicate  and  complex  mechanism,  with  eye 
and  ear  and  outer  sense,  as  open  windows 
through  which  rushed  the  world  of  truth 
and  beauty,  color,  sound,  and  sense.  Guided 
by  the  embryologists,  the  scientist  notes 
that  each  individual  man  passes  through  the 
stages  of  fish,  bird,  and  mammal,  and  is  at 
last  born  an  embryonic  man.  In  the  body 
of  the  babe  are  compacted  all  achievements 
of  the  entire  qjiimal  world,  each  bone,  each 
nerve,  each  ganglion.  It  is  as  if  "the  mod- 
ern stem-winding  watch  should  assemble  all 
the  features  of  the  old  time-keepers  every 
minute."  It  is  as  if  the  modern  loom  should 
assemble  all  the  features  of  all  the  looms 
since  the  time  of  Arkwright.  It  is  as  if  the 
modern  locomotive  should  include  every 
cog  and  wbseel  used  by  all  inventors  since 
the  time  of  Watt.  In  reality  the  last  loco- 
223 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

motive  includes  only  the  best  features  of 
former  engines.  Strangely  enough,  the 
human  embryo  includes  every  phase  of  life 
known  to  every  animal  creature,  as  if  man 
had  passed  through  the  experience  of  all. 
Astronomers  discovered  the  planet 
tune  after  its  existence  had  been  predi 
from  the  disturbance  induced  in  the  orb't  of 
Uranus.  Drummond  noted  that,  whtK-  the 
adult  man  has  only  twelve  pairs  of  rib  *  and 
certain  animals  have  fourteen,  it  wa?  pre- 
dicted that  in  a  certain  stage  the  infantile 
man  would  be  found  with  fourteen  pairs,  a 
prediction  that  was  actually  verified.  Study- 
ing the  scaffolding  of  the  body,  the  scientist 
mentions  some  fifty  or  sixty  organs — e.  g., 
vermiform  appendix — that  are  vestiges  of 
powers  once  highly  useful,  but  now  being 
slowly  atrophied.  The  lower  animals  ascend 
the  witness  stand  and  testify  as  to  the  origin 
of  man's  body.  He  notes  the  arrest  of 
the  body,  and  affirms  that  the  earth  will 
never  know  a  higher  creature  than  man. 
His  argument  is  very  plain.  The  time  was 
when  man  developed  his  hands  through 
use,  but  now  the  loom  and  the  lathe  toil  for 
his  hands.  The  time  was  when  man's  legs 
224 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

had  many  duties;  now  their  contracts  are 
fulfilled  by  steam  and  electricity,  and  the 
development  of  the  limbs  has  been  arrested. 
Once  the  eye  and  the  ear  were  very  acute, 
but  now  the  lenses  of  the  optician  have 
arrested  the  development  of  the  eye. 

In  those  fascinating  chapters  called  "The 
Evolution  of  the  Father  and  Mother"  Mr. 
Drummond  shows  how  the  law  of  force 
and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  became  the 
law  of  love  and  self-sacrifice.  In  times  past 
the  strongest  alone  survived,  while  the  weak 
went  to  the  wall.  But  motherhood  came 
to  lift  the  shield  above  weakness.  Love 
caused  weakness  to  survive.  In  mother- 
hood egotism  became  altruism  and  force 
was  transmuted  into  self-sacrifice.  Slowly 
God  taught  the  strong  to  bear  the  burdens 
of  the  weak.  Father  and  mother,  through 
personal  experience,  came  to  understand 
God  as  the  world's  larger  Father  and  great 
burden  bearer.  At  last  to  man  was  revealed 
God  as  washing  the  feet  of  each  insect,  caring 
for  each  lily  and  sparrow,  bearing  man's 
ignorance  and  weakness  and  sin.  In  the 
fullness  of  time  God  had  lifted  man  so 
high  that  at  last,  before  man's  wondering 
225 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

vision,  there  was  unveiled  the  face  of  that 
one  who  "seemest  human  and  divine/1 
Jesus  Christ,  the  world's  supreme  guide  and 
teacher,  the  ideal  of  all  that  is  best  for 
man,  the  revelation  of  all  that  is  truest  and 
sweetest  in  the  God  of  infinite  love. 

If  Martin  Luther  and  Bishop  Butler  came 
at  a  strategic  hour,  it  was  the  good  fortune 
of  Professor  Drummond  to  speak  at  one  of 
those  psychological  moments  when  the 
world,  eager  and  expectant,  waited  for 
some  prophet  of  reconciliation.  Not  an 
intellectual  giant  himself,  it  was  given  him 
to  usher  in  an  era  of  friendship  between 
giants  hitherto  at  enmity.  He  taught  the 
world  that  it  was  possible  to  be  a  rigid  sci- 
entist and  also  a  sweet-hearted  Christian. 
With  him  character  was  a  thousand  times 
more  than  culture,  and  Christ's  words  about 
the  soul  were  infinitely  more  important  than 
man's  words  about  sticks,  stones,  and  stars. 
The  title  of  one  of  his  books,  "Love,  the 
Greatest  Thing  in  the  World,"  contains  the 
genius  of  his  practical  teachings.  He  used 
to  say  that  if  man  cared  for  quantity,  God 
'cared  for  quality.  In  his  philosophy  one 
Christ-cultured  life  is  worth  more  to  a  nation 
226 


Memoirs  of  Henry  Drummond 

and  a  city  than  a  hundred  thousand  ordinary 
persons.  In  wounded  vanity,  disappointed 
hopes,  and  selfish  chagrin  he  found  the 
" vulgar  universal  sources  of  man's  unrest/' 
But  as  no  fever  can  attack  a  perfectly  sound 
body,  so  Professor  Drummond  thought  "no 
fever  of  unrest  can  disturb  a  soul  which 
breathes  the  air  or  learns  the  ways  of  Christ. ' ' 
Stricken  with  death,  this  Christian  scientist 
said:  "Men  sigh  for  the  wings  of  a  dove 
that  they  may  fly  away  and  be  at  rest.  But 
flying  away  will  not  help  them.  The  king- 
dom of  God  is  within  you.  It  is  Christ  that 
teaches  the  secret  of  the  great  calm  and  the 
invulnerable  faith."  Then  with  untroubled 
heart  the  seer  and  scientist  fell  asleep,  and 

"Passed  to  where,  beyond  these  voices,  there  is 
rest  and  peace." 


327 


IX 

The  Opportunities  of  Leisure  and  Wealth, 
an  Outlook  upon  the  Life  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury 


And  Sir  Launfal  said,  "I  behold  in  thee 
An  image  of  Him  who  died  on  the  tree;11 

He  parted  in  twain  his  single  crust, 

He  broke  the  ice  on  the  streamlet's  brink, 

And  gave  the  leper  to  eat  and  drink, 

'Twas  a  mouldy  crust  of  coarse  brown  bread, 

'Twas  water  out  of  a  wooden  bowl, — 

Yet  with  fine  wheaten  bread  was  the  leper  fed, 

And  'twas  red  wine  he  drank  with  his  thirsty  soul 

As  Sir  Launfal  mused  with  downcast  face, 
A  light  shone  round  about  the  place; 
The  leper  no  longer  crouched  at  his  side, 
But  stood  before  him  glorified, 
Shining  and  tall  and  fair  and  straight 
As  the  pillar  that  stood  by  the  Beautiful  Gate,— 
Himself  the  Gate  whereby  men  can 
Enter  the  temple  of  God  in  Man. 

"Lo,  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid! 
In  many  climes,  without  avail, 
Thou  hast  spent  thy  life  for  the  Holy  Grail; 
Behold,  it  is  here,— this  cup  which  thou 
Didst  fill  at  the  streamlet  for  me  but  now; 
This  crust  is  my  body  broken  for  thee, 
This  water  his  blood  that  died  on  the  tree; 
The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 
In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need; 
Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share, 
For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare; 
Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three, 
Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and  me/1 
The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal  (Lowell ),  pp.  joi,  302, 303. 


IX 

THE  OPPORTUNITIES  OF  LEISURE  AND 
WEALTH,  AN  OUTLOOK  UPON  THE 
LIFE  OF  LORD  SHAFTESBURY 

In  all  ages  the  human  heart  has  hungered 
for  heroes.  Every  generation  has  sought 
some  forehead  over  which  to  break  its  ala- 
baster box,  some  feet  at  which  to  empty 
out  all  its  flowers,  its  love,  its  tears.  The 
quality  of  hero  the  age  has  admired  gives 
the  measure  of  the  nation's  civilization. 
Long  centuries  ago  Cicero  ranked  his  city 
low  in  the  scale  of  progress,  because  there 
were  few  citizens  who  loved  eloquence  or 
philosophy  or  art,  but  many  who  crowded 
after  the  golden  chariot  of  the  conqueror. 
In  Tasso's  time  the  sentiment  had  changed, 
for  one  day  when  Michael  Angelo  completed 
the  lustrous  angels  on  the  ceiling  of  the 
Sistine  chapel  the  admiring  multitude  tore 
his  brushes  into  fragments  for  mementos, 
and  making  a  chariot  of  their  arms,  bore  the 
artist  home  to  his  lodgings. 
231 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

A  little  later,  in  Scotland,  the  ideal  hero 
was  a  patriot.  It  was  Robert  Bruce  who 
cast  the  sacred  spell  upon  the  people.  He 
who  wished  to  be  enshrined  in  human 
hearts  must  die  upon  the  battlefield  and 
with  his  blood  make  beautiful  some  flag  of 
liberty.  It  is  the  glory  of  our  age  that  the 
modern  hero  stands  forth  armed  not  with 
swords  and  spears,  but  weaponed  with  love 
and  kindness,  with  service  and  sympathy. 
The  new  knight  errant  toils  for  the  orphan 
and  the  invalid,  or  labors  for  the  children  of 
the  unhappy  poor.  It  was  the  misfortune 
of  the  ancient  era  that  it  taught  Ulysses  how 
to  bend  his  bow,  but  not  what  to  shoot; 
taught  Ajax  how  to  forge  iron,  but  left  him 
to  fashion  the  metal  into  manacles  for  slaves ; 
taught  Gutenberg  how  to  use  movable  type, 
but  not  what  ideas  to  print;  taught  Galileo's 
age  how  to  use  the  telescope  and  see  the  stars 
distant  millions  of  miles,  but  not  how  to  see 
the  woes  and  wrongs  in  the  next  street,  the 
sorrows  of  serfs  and  slaves,  the  distress  of 
debtors  and  prisoners. 

"The  peril  of  the  republic,"  said  Carlyle, 
"will  be  the  misgovernment  of  its  great 
cities."  Now  that  fifty  years  have  passed 
232 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  prophecy  has  become  history,  and  our 
large  towns  have  passed  under  the  rule  of 
Circe's  cup.  The  great  scholar  saw  that  in 
a  world  where  leisure  alone  makes  men 
masters  in  the  realm  of  learning,  leisure 
must  also  be  invoked  to  make  men  masters 
in  the  art  of  governing  great  cities.  But  if 
Carlyle  discerned  that  the  dominion  of  the 
demagogue  could  be  broken  by  the  rule  of  a 
leisure  class,  in  our  time  a  thousand  new 
considerations  emphasize  his  thought. 
To-day  an  enemy  is  abroad  in  the  land, 
sowing  tares  by  day  and  by  night,  lighting 
the  flames  of  class  hatred. 

Strangely  enough  the  objects  of  hatred 
are  those  who  in  times  past  have  been 
deemed  most  serviceable  to  the  community. 
In  the  city  he  who  by  saving  what  other 
men  wasted  has  produced  $500,000  is  a 
plutocrat  and  a  baron ;  in  the  town  he  who 
has  $50,000  is  the  public  enemy;  in  the 
remote  community  he  who  has  $10,000  is 
the  object  of  scorn  and  attack;  while  in 
Kentucky  recently,  when  a  group  of  tramps, 
making  their  usual  winter  excursion  into 
the  South,  met  a  young  traveling  peddler, 
they  were  so  incensed  against  this  plutocrat 
233 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

who  had  one  handbag  and  two  bundles  of 
knickknacks,  where  they  had  only  rags, 
that  they  fell  upon  this  youth,  and  finding 
in  his  knapsack  indubitable  proofs  of  wick- 
edness, they  beat  him  as  an  enemy  of  the 
human  race  and  left  him  half  dead. 

If  the  republic  is  to  go  forward  unto  bet- 
ter laws,  happier  homes,  greater  happiness, 
to  the  toil  of  the  working  classes  must  be 
added  the  toil  of  the  leisure  classes.  Our 
jails  are  full,  our  haunts  of  vice  are  full,  our 
reputation  as  hoodlums  is  also  fully  estab- 
lished. But  in  the  light  of  what  Ruskin 
and  Shaftesbury  accomplished  for  London, 
should  a  score  of  men  and  women  of  the 
leisure  class  give  their  lives  to  the  higher  life 
of  this  community,  an  affirmative  answer 
might  be  given  to  that  momentous  ques- 
tion, "Can  we  make  ours  a  true  city  of 
God?" 

To  every  department  of  nature  and  life 
God  has  given  its  own  voice  and  prophet. 
Each  stone  and  star,  each  bird  and  beast, 
hath  its  special  advocate.  To  the  planets 
God  gave  Newton,  to  the  bees  Huber,  Lin- 
naeus to  the  plants,  Audubon  to  the  birds, 
Phillips  to  the  slave,  Nightingale  to  the  sol- 
234 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

diers,  Livingstone  to  the  savage.  Having 
given  Ruskin  as  a  voice  to  genius,  He  gave 
Shaftesbury  as  a  voice  for  social  position  and 
rank.  "The  history  of  the  progress  of  the 
working  classes  in  this  century/'  said  the 
present  prime  minister  of  England,  "is  very 
largely  the  history  of  one  man's  life — that 
of  Shaftesbury/'  Very  early  in  his  career 
this  child  of  high  rank  and  wealth  received 
from  God  a  retainer  against  every  form  of 
oppression  and  wrong.  Of  his  unique  tal- 
ents it  has  been  said  that  greatness  was 
hereditary  in  that  distinguished  family. 

Like  the  famous  vine  in  Hampton  Court, 
with  its  proportions  of  a  forest  tree,  his 
ancestral  stalk  had  for  generations  ripened 
great  mental  treasure.  But  to  the  gifts  of 
high  birth  were  added  the  enrichment  of 
Harrow  and  Oxford ;  afterward  came  several 
years  of  travel,  expelling  narrowness  and 
prejudice,  and  making  the  youth  a  citizen  of 
the  universe.  This  child  of  good  fortune 
was  only  five-and-twenty  when  he  took  his 
place  in  Parliament,  yet  as  the  young  lark 
strikes  a  few  notes  of  sweet  song  when  only 
a  few  weeks  have  passed  over  its  life,  so 
very  early  in  his  career  this  youth  made  a 
235 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

revelation  of  his  innermost  spirit  and 
genius.  One  winter's  night  he  was  sitting 
with  a  member  of  the  cabinet  beside  his  fire- 
place watching  the  flames  and  the  sparks  fly 
up  the  chimney.  Within  all  was  beauty, 
comfort,  and  happiness,  but  without  the 
sleet  and  wind  were  beating  upon  the  win- 
dow, and  in  the  winter's  blast  and  darkness 
wandered  full  many  an  orphan  boy.  At  ten 
o'clock  the  young  man  excused  himself  to 
his  host  and  started  out  to  look  for  some 
unfortunate,  lost  in  the  darkness  and  cold, 
even  as  the  monks  and  their  faithful  dogs  of 
the  St.  Bernard  monastery  go  forth  in  the 
storm  to  save  travelers  lost  in  the  snow. 
At  that  time  Shaftesbury  had  hired  a  shelter 
house  in  the  east  end  of  London,  near 
Whitechapel  road. 

Very  pathetic  was  that  midnight  scene. 
With  his  lantern  and  his  two  hired  helpers 
Shaftesbury  made  his  way  to  the  end  of 
London  bridge,  where  he  knew  he  would 
find  twenty  or  thirty  men  huddled  up  close 
together  to  keep  warm.  As  his  lantern  fell 
upon  their  faces,  one  and  another,  pricked  by 
conscience,  would  leap  to  his  feet  and  spring 
quickly  into  the  darkness.  Soon  he  learned 
236 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

where  were  the  sheltered  spots  in  which 
the  unfortunates  hid  themselves,  the  ends 
of  bridges  where  newsboys  nestled,  the  stair- 
ways that  offered  shelter  to  wanderers,  the 
homes  of  vice,  the  haunts  of  crime.  Before 
two  o'clock  the  next  morning  Shaftesbury 
had  collected  some  thirty  boys  and  men  and 
led  them  away  to  his  new  shelter,  where  each 
received  his  bowl  of  soup  and  loaf  of  bread, 
his  bath,  and  thick  blanket  for  the  night's 
rest.  For  more  than  forty  years,  when  parlia- 
ment rose  at  midnight  and  other  members 
went  home,  it  was  Shaftesbury's  custom  to 
go  forth  to  search  out  those  of  whom  Christ 
said,  "I  was  sick  and  in  prison  and  ye  vis- 
ited me/'  "Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it 
unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren, 
ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

The  artist  who  would  paint  this  man, 
who  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
members  of  Parliament,  and  also  of  her 
Majesty's  government,  must  represent  the 
tall  figure,  refined  face,  and  the  patrician 
posture,  not  as  he  stood  upright,  deliver- 
ing some  speech  in  the  house,  but  rather 
as  he  stooped  to  flash  his  lantern  upon 
the  wanderers  sleeping  at  midnight  under 
237 


, 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

Waterloo  bridge.  But  let  no  man  under- 
estimate Shaftesbury's  self-denial.  The 
traveler  who  has  visited  the  ancestral 
home,  driven  through  the  long  avenue  of 
beeches  and  elms,  entered  the  mansion  with 
its  towers  and  turrets,  looked  into  the  faces 
of  those  six  earls  who  went  before  Shaftes- 
bury,  or  stood  in  the  vast  library  or  galleries 
with  their  treasures,  alone  can  understand 
what  Shaftesbury  denied  himself  when  he 
turned  from  his  elegant  opulence  and 
refined  leisure  to  spend  his  nights  and  days 
in  alleviating  the  woes  of  the  poor.  He 
loved  music  and  the  drama,  and  did  much 
to  advance  their  interests.  He  loved  the 
company  of  scholars  and  statesmen;  he 
loved  great  men  and  gracious  women.  But 
he  held  his  rank  and  position  as  trusts  in 
the  interest  of  weakness.  Whoever  came  to 
him  in  trouble  brought  a  message  from  God 
— his  trouble  being  a  letter  of  introduction. 
Homer  tells  us  that  when  a  celestial  being 
visited  the  battlefield  of  Troy  and  saw  the 
gash  in  the  foot  of  Patrocles  she  shed  bitter 
tears  and  turned  away  from  the  grewsome 
sight.  Shaftesbury  also  could  not  pass  mis- 
fortune without  shedding  tears,  yet  he  fled 
233 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

not  away  from  want,  but  rather  to  want, 
that  he  might  stanch  the  wound  and  heal 
the  woe. 

The  first  of  Shaftesbury's  great  reform 
movements  was  in  the  interests  of  that  class 
of  London's  poor  termed  the  street  arabs, 
the  waifs  and  strays  of  the  metropolis. 
These  were  the  children  of  the  most  igno- 
rant class,  as  sturdy  of  growth  as  weeds  in  a 
wheatfield.  They  swarmed  the  streets,  they 
gamboled  in  the  gutters,  they  haunted  the 
markets  in  search  of  castaway  food,  they 
nested  under  porches  and  stairways,  they 
crept  into  stables  or  under  arches  for  lodg- 
ings. They  lived  as  the  dogs  of  Constanti- 
nople live,  the  outcasts  of  the  great  city. 
The  statesman  saw  that  such  an  atmosphere 
could  no  more  rear  good  citizens  than  the 
breath  of  hot  Vesuvius  could  cover  the 
mountains  with  roses  and  violets.  One 
Sunday  afternoon  in  1840  Shaftesbury  took 
the  celebrated  Arnold  of  Rugby  for  a  tour 
through  Bloomsbury,  noted  for  its  filth  and 
fever,  its  haunts  of  vice  and  crime. 

The  memory  of  that  visit  haunted  Arnold 
by  day  and  night  for  weeks  afterward. 
" These  classes,"  he  wrote,  "form  the  rid- 
339 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

die  of  our  civilization,  and  may  yet  destroy 
us  as  did  the  Vandals  of  old/'  In  order  to 
acquaint  himself  fully  with  the  problems  of 
the  poor,  for  ten  years  Shaftesbury  gave  his 
Sunday  afternoons,  and  often  the  mornings 
of  his  week  days,  to  the  exploration  of  the 
lanes  and  alleys  of  the  tenement  house  dis- 
tricts. In  his  report  to  Parliament  he  speaks 
of  houses  so  foul  that  his  physician  had  to 
stand  outside  the  door  to  write  the  prescrip- 
tion; of  walls  that  oozed  grime;  of  rook- 
eries whose  bricks  sweat  filth;  of  a  cellar 
where  four  families  occupied  the  single  room, 
with  chalk  lines  marking  the  boundaries  of 
each.  After  conducting  the  committee  ap- 
pointed by  Parliament  through  this  region, 
he  reported  that  one-fourth  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  great  metropolis  were  born 
amid  these  filthy  surroundings.  .  He  re- 
minded England  that  the  schoolhouse  must 
go  before  the  ballot-box,  and  that  if  each 
outcast  child  was  some  day  to  use  his  vote 
and  rule  like  a  king,  the  threshold  of  the 
schoolroom  must  be  made  as  attractive  for 
the  boys  as  the  threshold  of  a  king's  palace. 
The  romantic  story  of  how  Shaftesbury 
founded  fifty  or  more  "ragged"  schools, 
240 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

attended  by  some  ten  thousand  children,  is 
now  a  part  of  history,  as  is  his  system  of 
night  schools,  industrial  schools,  and  Sun- 
day schools,  where  boys  and  girls  were 
taught  not  only  sacred  truths,  but  also  how 
to  make  their  own  clothes,  how  to  weave 
doormats,  make  hassocks,  print  handbills, 
mastering  many  of  the  simpler  handicrafts. 
The  thrilling  story  of  how  Shaftesbury  cov- 
ered all  London  with  his  schoolrooms,  that 
with  their  transformations  wrought  upon 
child  life — because  sacred  as  sanctuaries — 
comes  to  us  with  the  force  of  divine  indict- 
ment, for  in  the  great  cities  of  our  land, 
awaiting  the  friendship  of  the  leisure  classes, 
are  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  children 
whose  footsteps  never  cross  the  threshold  of 
a  Bible  school,  who  have  never  had  child- 
hood softened  by  its  music,  nor  manhood 
molded  by  its  lesson. 

Shaftesbury 's  movements  in  the  interest 
of  the  working  girls  and  shopwomen  of 
London  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  one  of 
the  most  vexed  questions  of  our  own  city. 
In  New  York  wise  men  have  successfully 
inaugurated  a  system  of  small  loans  for  the 
poor,  through  pawnshops  that  are  largely 
241 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

the  outcome  of  Shaftesbury's  first  enter- 
prise. Having  founded  several  homes  for 
poor  girls  and  working  women,  he  found 
that  many  who  sold  flowers  and  water-cress 
during  the  summer  were  without  employ- 
ment during  the  four  months  of  winter, 
when  most  of  all  they  needed  it,  nor  had 
they  the  money  to  prepare  to  enter  a  new 
occupation  adapted  to  the  cold  season.  Lord 
Shaftesbury  therefore  conceived  the  idea  of 
founding  a  loan  association  to  assist  women 
to  support  their  families. 

His  agents  bought  chocolate  and  coffee 
stalls,  waffle  boards  and  "  baked  potato 
ovens,"  while  for  boys,  money  was  loaned  to 
buy  the  outfit  for  boot  blacking.  During 
one  winter  he  made  loans  of  from  one  to  two 
pounds  each  among  a  thousand  poor  women, 
whose  daily  toil  was  the  sole  support  of  an 
entire  family.  In  reviewing  his  loans  for 
twenty  years  he  found  that  during  the  period 
his  entire  losses  were  less  than  fifty  pounds, 
and  these  were  through  sickness  or  death  of 
the  borrower  rather  than  through  fraud.  In 
no  case  was  it  necessary  to  enforce  the  pay- 
ment by  taking  away  the  ovens  or  stands. 
Most  of  this  money  was  repaid  at  the  rate 
243 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

of  a  sixpence  or  a  shilling  per  week.  Refer- 
ring  to  one  poor  creature  whom  he  had 
picked  up  at  night,  he  says:  "One  night  I 
found  a  stranded  bit  of  driftwood.  She 
seemed  heartbroken,  and  I  started  her  in 
business  with  a  cress  and  coffee  stand.  Her 
fidelity  and  service  of  love  among  the  poor 
in  the  years  since  her  reform  have  made  her 
a  veritable  angel  of  mercy  in  the  tenement 
district  where  she  lives.  During  a  long  life 
I  have  proved  that  not  one  kind  word  ever 
spoken,  not  one  kind  deed  ever  done,  but 
sooner  or  later  returns  to  bless  the  giver,  and 
becomes  a  chain  binding  men  with  golden 
bands  to  the  throne  of  God/' 

Extending  his  reforms  into  other  realms, 
Shaftesbury  began  to  look  into  the  lodg- 
ing-house system.  First  he  erected  in  the 
tenement  house  district  a  home  for  young 
men  just  in  from  the  country  who  wanted 
to  find  a  place  where  the  decencies  of  life 
were  observed,  and  wished  shelter  for  a 
moderate  rent.  He  saw  to  it  that  each 
room  was  well  lighted,  ventilated,  and  had 
the  best  sanitary  provisions,  adding  some 
conveniences  then  called  luxuries.  To  his 
great  astonishment  the  enterprise  that  was 
243 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

begun  as  a  benefaction  ended  as  an  invest- 
ment paying  six  per  cent.  But  all  about 
were  thousands  of  old  tenements  falling  into 
decay  and  breeding  physical  pestilence  and 
moral  death.  With  tireless  enthusiasm  he 
set  about  purging  this  reeking  inferno,  a 
task  that  involved  ten  of  the  best  years  of 
his  life. 

Interesting  Peabody,  the  Boston  banker, 
Shaftesbury  prepared  a  bill  that  provided 
for  the  condemnation  and  destruction  of 
hundreds  of  old  houses,  while  in  the  speci- 
fications for  new  buildings  regard  was  had 
for  sunshine,  air,  and  the  size  of  the  rooms, 
their  periodic  whitewashing  and  cleansing, 
and  the  number  of  persons  who  could  occupy 
a  given  house.  This  was  the  first  successful 
effort  to  reach  the  very  dregs  of  poverty,  and 
cleanse  the  darkest  dens  of  vice,  misery,  and 
sin.  In  ten  years  Shaftesbury  wrought  a 
striking  transformation  in  the  east  end  of 
London.  Even  the  London  Times  con- 
fessed that  not  less  than  eighty  thousand 
people  had  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  the  re- 
form. The  author  of  "Municipal  Govern- 
ment" tells  us  that  Shaftesbury 's  lodging- 
houses  furnish  models  for  the  world,  and 
244 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

commend  themselves  to  the  philanthropists 
as  the  best  method  as  yet  devised  for  cleans- 
ing these  bogs  of  misery  and  vice. 

For  children  and  youth  cannot  be  pure 
within  when  all  is  darkness  and  filth  with- 
out. When  the  company  of  Grecian  youth 
went  forth  to  found  the  city,  and  were 
injured  by  much  draining  of  swamps  and  liv- 
ing in  miasma,  we  are  told  the  fairies  came 
and  in  the  night  laid  pipes  for  draining  off 
the  foul  water,  spanned  the  streams  with 
bridges,  changed  the  huts  into  houses,  built 
temples  and  palaces  on  the  public  squares, 
surrounded  all  by  a  vast  wall  for  their  pro- 
tection. But  the  story  how  fairies  trans- 
formed a  city  of  mud  into  one  of  marble 
seems  as  nothing  compared  to  this  man's 
transformation  of  these  lands  of  misery, 
dirt  and  vice  into  a  region  characterized  by 
comfort,  cleanliness,  and  physical  happiness 
for  eighty  thousand  men  and  women. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  Shaftes- 
bury's  reforms  was  his  movement  for  the 
fifty  thousand  costermongers  of  London. 
The  district  in  which  they  dwelt  is  one  of 
mean  streets,  close  alleys,  gloomy  tene- 
ments, being  as  barren  of  beauty  or  a  green 
245 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

spot  as  a  heap  of  sand  or  cinders.  There 
little  children  toil,  sweeping  the  filth  from 
the  streets;  the  men  and  women  sell  dried 
fish,  fruit,  old  iron,  pins,  and  needles.  Not 
Stanley  plunging  through  the  tropic  swamps 
and  forests  of  Africa  to  investigate  the 
sorrows  of  the  dwarfs  dwelling  in  the  tree- 
tops,  and  the  woes  of  those  who  suffered 
from  the  slave  traffic  was  more  persevering 
than  was  Shaftesbury  in  his  investigations  of 
the  woes  of  the  costermongers.  Deeply 
interested  in  their  welfare,  he  became  their 
representative  in  Parliament,  and  succeeded 
in  passing  a  bill  in  the  interests  of  their  dis- 
trict. He  then  bought  a  donkey  and  cart, 
and  putting  his  name  and  coat-of-arms 
thereupon,  he  gave  it  to  a  poor  girl  to  support 
her  widowed  mother.  Then  he  organized  a 
costers*  fair,  and  founding  a  humane  society 
in  the  interests  of  dumb  beasts,  each  year 
he  presented  a  prize  donkey  to  the  boy  or 
man  whose  own  beast  showed  the  sign  of 
having  the  best  care. 

For  the  twenty  thousand   children  in  the 

district  he  founded  night  schools,  Sunday 

schools,   and  large  industrial  classes,    with 

clubs   for  the  men  and  women.     One  year 

246 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  thousand  boys  planned  a  presentation 
to  their  benefactor,  and  uniting  their  pen- 
nies, purchased  the  finest  donkey  they  could 
find  in  London.  At  the  proper  moment, 
when  Shaftesbury  was  in  the  chair,  the  don- 
key, gayly  decorated  with  ribbons  and  draw- 
ing the  cart,  with  his  name  upon  it,  was  led 
upon  the  platform  and  presented  to  Shaftes- 
bury, while  five  thousand  boys  and  their 
parents  and  friends  stood  upon  chairs,  and 
waving  handkerchiefs,  cheered  wildly.  In 
accepting  the  gift,  with  a  touch  of  pathos, 
he  said:  "In  closing  my  long  life  I  desire 
only  that  it  may  be  said  of  me  that  I  have 
served  men  with  a  patience  and  resignation 
like  unto  this  faithful  beast/' 

Full  speech  over  Shaftesbury 's  life  and 
labor  is  impossible.  Passing  through  a  for- 
est in  October,  the  pilgrim  may  bear  away 
a  single  golden  bough,  not  all  oaks  or  elms. 
It  is  not  an  easy  task  to  call  the  roll  of 
Shaftesbury's  manifold  labors.  He  gave 
fifteen  years  to  collecting  the  facts  and 
securing  the  passage  of  the  lunacy  bills  that 
give  the  world  our  new  system  of  asylums. 
He  gave  ten  years  to  the  factory  towns  of 
England,  and  passed  bills  that  ameliorated 
247 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

the  condition  of  three  hundred  thousand 
girls  and  women  and  secured  the  release 
from  the  looms  of  forty  thousand  children 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  that  they 
might  spend  three  hours  in  the  schoolroom. 
His  industrial  schools,  ragged  schools, 
shelter  houses,  loan  associations  for  working- 
men,  and  his  labor  for  chimney-sweeps  occu- 
pied many  more  years.  During  this  time 
he  was  also  the  co-worker  and  counselor  of 
Cobden  and  John  Bright  in  the  corn-law 
movement. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  twice  he 
was  a  member  of  the  cabinet,  and  for  fifty 
years  was  one  of  the  hardest  worked  men  in 
Parliament.  In  his  later  years  honors 
poured  upon  him  like  a  flood.  Deputa- 
tions came  to  him  with  gifts  from  every 
part  of  the  land.  The  whole  nation  did 
him  honor  when  three  hundred  of  the  great- 
est men  of  England,  including  the  statesmen, 
orators,  scientists,  scholars,  and  financiers, 
gave  him  an  ovation  at  the  Mansion  House, 
and  the  mayor  formally  tendered  him  the 
freedom  of  the  city  of  London.  Almost 
daily  some  city  sent  a  deputation  to  ask  him 


248 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

to  dedicate  some  library,  gallery,  hall,  or 
inaugurate  some  public  movement. 

His  last  public  duty  was  to  visit  Lord 
Salisbury  with  regard  to  the  revelations  in 
the  Pall  Mall  Gazette.  The  next  day  he 
arose  in  the  House  of  Lords  and  began  a 
speech  with  the  words:  "My  lords,  I  am 
now  an  old  man.  When  I  feel  age  creeping 
upon  me  and  know  I  must  soon  die,  I  am 
deeply  grieved,  for  I  cannot  bear  to  leave 
the  world  with  so  much  misery  in  it/' 
Overtaxed,  that  night  he  called  for  his 
daughter,  and  whispered:  "Read  me  the 
words  beginning,  'The  Lord  is  my  shepherd. 
Though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil/  '  And 
while  she  read,  a  gentle  smile  came  over  his 
face,  and  the  great  man  passed  down  that 
way  o'er  which  none  doth  ever  return. 

Three  days  later  a  plain  hearse,  with  four 
carnages,  drove  from  his  home  toward 
Westminster  Abbey.  When  the  procession 
entered  Pall  Mall  it  became  evident  that  all 
London  was  abroad  to  do  the  dead  hero 
honor.  The  blinds  were  drawn  in  the  great 
clubhouses  and  mansions,  but  the  sidewalks 


249 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

and  lanes  were  crowded  with  untold  thou- 
sands. Reaching  Trafalgar  Square,  forty 
thousand  factory  hands,  seamstresses,  flower 
girls,  and  laborers  from  the  east  end  were 
found  there  assembled.  Then  came  a  mile 
through  such  crowds  as  London  has  scarcely 
ever  seen.  On  either  side  of  the  street  were 
deputations  from  the  Sunday  schools,  the 
shelters,  the  homes,  the  training  schools. 
When  the  hearse  approached  the  coster- 
mongers,  a  leader  lifted  a  banner  with  these 
words,  "I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me 
in.  * '  The  boys  from  the  ragged  schools  lifted 
this  banner,  "I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited 
me."  Upon  a  silken  flag  the  leader  of  a 
thousand  working  girls  had  inscribed  the 
words,  "Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it  unto  me."  An 
hour  later,  in  the  great  Abbey,  were  gath- 
ered royalty,  lords,  commons,  city  councils, 
the  great  merchants,  financiers,  and  scholars 
of  England.  "This  man  goeth  down  to 
the  grave,"  began  the  orator,  "amid  the 
benedictions  of  the  poor  and  the  admiring 
love  of  the  rich/'  The  next  day,  rising  in 
Parliament,  Lord  Salisbury  said :  "My  lords, 


250 


Life  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 

the  reforms  of  this  century  have  been  largely 
of  England";  while  Mr.  Gladstone  said, 
"The  safety  of  our  country  is  not  in  law 
or  legislators,  but  in  Christian  gentlemen 
like  unto  Lord  Shaftesbury." 


251 


The  Biography  of  Frances  Willard  and 
the  Heroes  of  Social  Reform — A  Study 
of  the  Knights  of  the  New  Chivalry 


Social  science  affirms  that  woman's  place  in  society 
marks  the  level  of  civilization.  From  its  twilight  in 
Greece,  through  the  Italian  worship  of  the  Virgin,  the 
dreams  of  chivalry,  the  justice  of  the  civil  law,  and 
the  equality  of  French  society,  we  trace  her  gradual 
recognition;  while  our  common  law,  as  Lord  Brougham 
confessed,  was,  with  relation  to  women,  the  oppro- 
brium of  the  age  and  of  Christianity.  For  forty  years 
plain  men  and  women,  working  noiselessly,  have 
washed  away  that  opprobrium;  the  statute-books  of 
thirty  States  have  been  remodeled,  and  woman 
stands  to-day  almost  face  to  face  with  her  last  claim 
— the  ballot.  It  has  been  a  weary  and  thankless, 
though  successful,  struggle.  But  if  there  be  any 
refuge  from  that  ghastly  curse— the  vice  of  great 
cities,  before  which  social  science  stands  palsied  and 
dumb— it  is  in  this  more  equal  recognition  of  woman. 
If,  in  this  critical  battle  for  universal  suffrage— our 
fathers'  noblest  legacy  to  us,  and  the  greatest  trust 
God  leaves  in  our  hands — there  will  be  any  weapon, 
which  once  taken  from  the  armory  will  make  victory 
certain,  it  will  be,  as  it  has  been  in  art,  literature,  and 
society,  summoning  woman  into  the  political  arena. — 
Speeches  and  Lectures  ( Wendell  Phillips),  pp.  jjj,  jjj. 


THE  BIOGRAPHY  OF  FRANCES  WILLARD,  AND 
THE  HEROES  OF  SOCIAL  REFORM — A 
STUDY  OF  THE  KNIGHTS  OF  THE  NEW 
CHIVALRY 

Already  an  English,  a  French,  and  an 
American  historian  have  told  the  story  of 
the  achievements  of  this  closing  half  cen- 
tury. From  different  view-points  these 
scholars  have  characterized  our  epoch  as 
illustrious  for  what  it  has  accomplished  in 
politics,  in  war  and  wealth,  in  commerce 
and  invention.  But  if  our  century  has  been 
a  proud  one  for  all  lovers  of  their  kind,  its 
preeminence  does  not  rest  upon  the  increase 
of  tools  releasing  the  multitudes  from 
drudgery;  the  increase  of  books  releasing 
the  multitudes  from  ignorance;  the  diffu- 
sion of  art  releasing  the  multitudes  from 
ugliness ;  the  development  of  science  releas- 
ing the  multitudes  from  squalor,  pain,  and 
suffering.  When  long  time  has  passed  by, 
historians  will  see  that  the  crowning  glory 
255 


Great  Books  as  Life-Teachers 

of  our  century  has  been  the  rise  of  the  hu- 
manists and  the  development  of  a  new  order 
of  chivalry. 

For  the  first  time  in  history  the  material 
forces  of  society  have  begun  to  be  Chris- 
tianized, and  literature  and  wealth,  position 
and  eloquence,  have  allied  themselves  with 
the  poor  and  the  weak.  No  longer  can  rank 
bribe  scholarship,  or  riches  monopolize 
genius.  In  France  our  epoch  has  witnessed 
the  rise  of  Victor  Hugo's  school,  consecrat- 
ing talent  to  the  convicts  and  the  poor  of 
great  cities.  In  England  Charles  Dickens 
pleads  the  cause  of  the  orphan  and  the  waif 
as  typified  by  Oliver  Twist  and  David 
Copperfield,  while  Kingsley,  Besant,  and 
Shaftesbury  speak  and  write  for  the  laborers 
in  mines  and  factories.  In  our  own  land 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  represents  a  multi- 
tude of  writers  who  seek  to  ameliorate  the 
lot  of  the  slave  and  the  outcast.  The  poets 
and  essayists,  also — Lowell  and  Whittier, 
Ruskin  and  Carlyle;  those  heroic  soldiers 
named  Gordon  and  Lord  Lawrence,  intrepid 
discoverers  like  Livingstone;  living  philan- 
thropists and  reformers,  too,  there  are,  whose 
names  may  not  be  mentioned,  until  death 
256 


Frances  Willard 

hath  starred  them— these  all  have  counted 
themselves  as  retained  by  God  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  weak  and  the  downtrodden.  If 
in  former  centuries  a  single  name  like  Dante 
or  Luther  stands  for  an  epoch,  the  hero  being 
like  a  star  riding  solitary  through  the  night ; 
in  our  era  "the  humanists  and  knights  of 
social  reform  are  a  great  multitude — like 
stars,  indeed,  for  brightness  and  number, 
and  like  stars,  also,  in  that  "God  calleth 
them  all  by  name.*' 

In  all  ages  the  reformers  have  gone  the 
way  of  contempt,  obloquy,  and  shame,  hav- 
ing their  Gethsemane.  From  Paul  to 
Luther  and  Garrison  and  Gough,  these  men 
have  been  the  best  hated  men  of  their 
times.  In  our  fathers'  day  the  very  skies 
rained  lies  and  cruel  slanders  upon  those 
abolitionists  who  affirmed  that  the  fugitive 
slave  law  "was  a  compact  with  hell  and  a 
league  with  the  devil."  But  if  in  the  life- 
time of  the  reformers  the  fathers  stoned  the 
prophets  through  the  streets,  covered  their 
garments  with  filth,  mobbed  their  halls  and 
houses,  the  children  are  building  monuments 
to  the  reformer  and  teaching  their  sons  the 
pathway  to  the  hero's  tomb.  "Time  writes 
257 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

the  final  epitaph/'  said  Bacon;  and  we  now 
see  that  those  who  in  their  lifetime  allied 
themselves  with  the  poor  and  weak  have 
supremacy  over  the  orators  and  statesmen 
and  scholars  who  loved  position  and  toiled 
for  self. 

In  the  interests  of  its  children  and  youth, 
what  would  not  this  nation  give  to-day  if 
Daniel  Webster  and  Rufus  Choate  and 
Edward  Everett  had  only  refused  com- 
promise, stood  unflinchingly  for  principle, 
and  marched  straight  to  that  certain  defeat 
in  life  that  would  have  meant  a  certain  vic- 
tory after  death?  In  the  Pantheon  of  our 
immortals  we  now  behold  those  intrepid 
reformers  and  radicalists  who  once  vexed 
conservatism  and  annoyed  the  wealthy 
classes  who  loved  ease,  while  the  jurists  and 
merchants  and  statesmen  who  sacrificed  prin- 
ciple to  selfish  supremacy  have  received 
neither  statue  nor  portrait,  and  have  already 
passed  into  forgetfulness  and  obscurity. 

But  there  in  the  sunlight  stands,  and  shall 
stand  forever,  that  Whittier,  whose  message 
was,  indeed,  sweetness  and  light,  but  who, 
when  the  fugitive  slave  law  was  passed, 
acted  the  hero's  part,  forged  his  thunderbolt, 
258 


Frances  Willard 

and  wrote  "Ichabod"  across  the  brow  of 
the  erring  statesman.  There,  too,  is  that 
elegant  patrician,  Wendell  Phillips,  the  idol 
of  Boston's  most  exclusive  circle,  the  bril- 
liant champion  of  luxury  and  conservatism, 
with  his  ambition  for  a  place  in  the  Senate, 
and  supremacy  for  constitutional  law,  who 
proudly  took  his  stand  beside  the  slave,  and 
knew  that  all  the  doors  upon  the  avenues 
had  closed  behind  him,  and  when  his  city 
jeered,  hurled  his  polished  epithets  and 
scornful  arrows  upon  the  beautiful  women 
and  the  cowardly  men  who  once  had  been 
his  companions.  Nor  must  we  forget 
Charles  Sumner,  with  his  knowledge  of 
international  law,  his  skill  in  diplomacy,  and 
his  ambition  for  foreign  service,  who  gave 
up  all  his  hopes  and  bound  this  motto  as  a 
frontlet  between  his  eyes,  "Bondage  must 
be  destroyed  and  liberty  established/'  and 
who  was  at  last  knighted  by  the  club  of  a 
coward,  who  smote  him  in  the  Senate 
chamber  and  brought  the  statesman  to  honor 
and  immortality. 

Here,   too,   is  Garrison,   serenely  setting 
type  for  the  Liberator,   smiling   scornfully 
upon  the  mob  howling  in  the  streets  below 
259 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

his  windows,  even  though  destined  an  hour 
later  to  be  dragged  over  the  stones  with  a 
rope  around  his  neck,  and  who  in  that  hour 
was  the  only  cool  man  in  all  the  demoniac 
crowd.  And  here  is  Lowell,  tuning  his 
harp  to  songs  of  liberty;  and  Emerson  from 
his  study  flinging  cold,  philosophical  reflec- 
tions into  the  very  teeth  of  slavery;  and 
here  is  Beecher  with  his  flaming  torch  kin- 
dling the  fires  of  liberty  all  over  the  land ; 
and  here  is  Douglass  with  his  scars,  speak- 
ing eloquently  of  the  horrors  of  the  slave 
market  and  the  cotton  field;  and  here  is 
John  Brown  with  smiling  face  and  sunny 
heart  going  bravely  to  his  martyrdom ;  and 
here  also  the  company  of  noble  women  with 
their  books  and  songs  and  stories  strength- 
ening the  battle  line.  Nor  must  we  forget 
Florence  Nightingale  with  her  crusade  in 
the  hospital  and  prison;  Horace  Mann  with 
his  crusade  against  ignorance;  Gough  with 
his  crusade  against  intemperance;  General 
Booth  with  his  crusade  for  the  neglected 
poor  in  great  cities,  and  Livingstone  toiling 
unceasingly  through  weary  years  to  encircle 
the  Dark  Continent  with  lighthouses  for  mind 
and  heart.  The  time  was  when  these 
260 


Frances  Willard 

reformers  were  despised,  scoffed  at,  and 
mobbed,  with  whose  very  names  men  would 
not  defile  their  lips.  But  now  cities  are 
erecting  their  statues  in  the  parks  and  build- 
ing monuments  in  the  public  squares,  that 
children  and  youth  may  emulate  their  vir- 
tues. When  time  hath  plowed  our  cities 
into  dust  the  names  of  these  reformers  and 
heroes  will  survive  as  enduring  monuments 
to  our  age  and  civilization. 

To  those  reformers  who  sought  to  destroy 
slavery  must  now  be  added  those  who  felt 
that  their  task  had  only  begun  when  the 
physical  fetters  fell  off,  and  so  passed  swiftly 
on  to  achieve  liberty  for  each  enslaved  mind 
and  heart.  In  Frances  Willard  our  age  has 
lost  one  of  its  noblest  daughters,  whose 
achievements  for  God  and  home  and  native 
land  were  such  as  to  rank  her  as  one  of  the 
most  famous  women  of  this  century.  Only 
those  who  have  lingered  long  over  her  books 
and  essays,  or  have  passed  under  the  full 
spell  of  her  luminous  speech,  or  have  con- 
sidered her  wide-reaching  influence  upon 
our  education,  our  civic  institutions,  can 
understand  why  it  is  that  two  continents 
mourn  for  our  prophetess  of  self-renuncia- 
261 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

tion.  When  Madame  de  Stael  and  George 
Eliot  were  borne  to  the  tomb  it  could  not 
be  said  of  these  daughters  of  genius  that  in 
a  thousand  towns  and  cities  the  multitudes 
assembled  in  church  or  hall  to  sit  with 
bowed  heads  and  saddened  hearts,  keeping 
a  sacred  tryst  with  memory  during  that 
solemn  hour  when  afar  off  memorial  words 
were  being  spoken  above  the  silent  dead. 
While  she  lived  the  American  home  seemed 
a  little  safer  for  her  being  here.  What  uni- 
versal sorrow  now  that  she  hath  gone! 

If  titled  folk  of  foreign  lands  cabled  sym- 
pathy and  sent  wreaths  and  flowers,  the 
children  of  poverty  and  suffering  also 
crowded  the  streets  along  that  line  of 
funeral  march.  The  death  of  what  private 
individual  since  Abraham  Lincoln's  time 
has  called  forth  a  thousand  memorial  funeral 
services  upon  the  afternoon  of  one  day? 
The  time  is  not  yet  come  for  the  analysis  of 
Frances  Willard's  character,  or  the  exhibi- 
tion of  her  mental  or  moral  traits.  Among 
her  divine  gifts  must  be  included  a  body 
firmly  compacted  and  of  unique  endurance, 
yet  delicately  constituted  as  an  JEolian 
harp;  a  voice  sweet  as  a  flute,  yet  heard 
262 


Frances  Willard 

of  thousands;  rare  common  sense,  strength 
of  reason  and  memory,  singular  insight  into 
human  nature,  intuitive  knowledge  of  pub- 
lic men  and  measures;  tact,  sympathy, 
imagination,  enthusiasm,  with  a  genius  for 
sacrifice  and  self-renunciation.  Early  suc- 
cessful as  an  authoress,  highly  honored 
with  position  and  rank  in  the  realm  of  higher 
education,  she  turned  her  back  upon  all 
offers  of  promotion. 

She  organized  a  work  for  women  through 
women,  her  brain  conceiving  the  new 
thought,  her  heart  lending  it  momentum, 
her  will  executing  the  vast  conception.  In 
the  beginning  she  toiled  without  salary, 
until  she  had  expended  her  little  store,  and 
came  to  such  straits  that,  for  want  of  car- 
fare she  had  to  walk  to  and  from  her  dark, 
bare  office.  Soon  she  set  before  herself 
the  task  of  addressing  the  people  in  every 
city  in  our  land  that  had  ten  thousand  peo- 
ple. When  twelve  years  had  passed  by  she 
had  stood  before  four  thousand  audiences, 
a  feat  surpassed  only  by  Beecher,  Gough, 
and  Moody.  She  was  largely  instrumental 
in  securing  the  enactment  of  laws  in  all  the 
States  of  the  Union,  save  Texas,  Arkansas, 
263 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

and  Virginia,  to  introduce  physiological 
temperance  and  the  scientific  study  of  stim- 
ulants and  narcotics  into  the  curriculum  of 
the  common  school.  For  years  she  was 
misunderstood;  oft  was  she  cruelly  criti- 
cised, full  oft  despised  and  scorned.  But  at 
last  she  has  fulfilled  her  career.  She  is  now 
with  Augusta  Stanley  and  Mary  Lyon,  with 
Lucretia  Mott  and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 
Having  met  them  and  received  their  ap- 
proval, what  cares  she  for  our  praise?  As 
was  said  of  Wendell  Phillips,  so  is  it  of  su- 
preme importance  to  us  and  our  children  that 
Frances  Willard  should  think  well  of  us.* 
Whom  God  hath  crowned,  let  us  remember, 
man  may  not  discrown. 

Not  until  our  children's  children  come  to 
write  the  history  of  the  reform  movement 
of  this  century  can  the  influence  of  the  noble 
women  who  have  toiled  for  temperance  be 
rightly  understood.  Nevertheless,  if  we 
contrast  the  drinking  habits  and  customs  of 
the  former  generation  with  those  of  our 
own  era  we  shall  obtain  some  conception  of 
the  enormous  gains  made  in  national  so- 

*P.  597,  Oration  on  Wendell  Phillips,  in  "  Modern 
Perils  and  Opportunities."— Joseph  Cook. 

264 


Frances  Willard 

briety.  If  to-day  in  Frances  Willard's 
home,  in  Evanston,  the  children  and  youth 
of  ninety-five  homes  out  of  each  hundred 
have  never  known  the  taste  of  spirits,  at  the 
beginning  of  this  century  drunkenness  was 
well-nigh  universal.  But  eighty  years  have 
passed  by  since  Lyman  Beecher  said :  '  '  Rum 
consecrates  our  baptisms,  our  weddings,  and 
our  funerals.  Our  vices  are  digging  the 
grave  of  our  liberties."  About  the  same 
time,  when  a  prominent  merchant  of  Phila- 
delphia died,  and  his  pastor  went  to  the 
house  to  the  funeral,  he  found  the  table 
under  the  trees  was  spread  with  liquor,  in 
which  the  people  were  freely  indulging. 
The  writer  affirms  that  on  reaching  the 
grave,  save  himself  and  the  grave-digger, 
there  was  not  a  man  present  who  was  not 
in  danger,  through  intoxication,  of  falling 
into  the  grave.  Even  as  late  as  1826  the 
ministerial  associations  of  Rhode  Island  and 
Connecticut  provided  wine  and  liquor  for 
the  annual  meeting  of  the  clergy, 

And  once  the  great  temperance  movement 

was  inaugurated,  it  began  as  regulation,  and 

not   as   prohibition.      The   earliest   printed 

temperance  pledge  that  has  come  down  to 

265 


Great  Books  as  Life-Teachers 

us  includes  two  clauses:  (i)  No  member 
shall  drink  rum,  under  penalty  of  twenty- 
five  cents.  (2)  No  member  shall  be  intoxi- 
cated, under  penalty  of  fifty  cents.  When 
total  abstinence  was  proposed  men  received 
it  with  scorn  and  jeers,  and  the  total  ab- 
stainer became  almost  an  outcast.  When 
one  of  the  early  founders  of  a  temperance 
society  in  Vermont  refused  liquor  to  the 
neighbors  who  were  helping  him  raise  his 
new  barn,  his  friends  dropped  their  tools  and 
refused  their  service,  and  although  the  total 
abstainer  scoured  the  township  for  helpers, 
he  was  unable  to  obtain  laborers  until  he 
furnished  the  usual  liquors.  Angry  at  this 
temperance  fanatic,  one  old  gentleman  ex- 
claimed: "How  bigoted  is  this  abstainer; 
unless  checked  such  fanaticism  will  ruin  the 
country  and  break  up  the  Democratic 
party" — which  must  not  be  interpreted  as 
meaning  that  the  Republicans  drank  less 
heavily.  At  last  Dr.  Cheever  wrote  his  cele- 
brated tract  on  " Deacon  Giles*  Distillery.0 
Using  another  name,  he  described  the  career 
of  one  Deacon  Story,  who  to  his  business 
as  a  distiller  added  the  duties  of  agent  of 
the  Bible  society,  selling  bottles  from  one 
266 


Frances  Willard 

counter  and  Bibles  from  the  other,  into 
whose  malt  vat  one  day  his  drunken  son  fell 
and  was  drowned.  When  the  distiller  read 
his  but  thinly  disguised  biography  in  Dr. 
Cheever's  book,  he  arrested  the  scholar  for 
libel  and  threw  him  into  jail.  The  public 
discussion  that  followed  fell  upon  the  public 
mind  like  a  spark  upon  the  Western  prai- 
ries, and  soon  the  whole  land  was  aglow 
with  the  greatest  temperance  movement 
known  to  history. 

Then,  just  at  the  critical  moment,  God 
raised  up  Gough  to  trouble  the  hosts  of 
intemperance.  At  first  this  reformed  book- 
binder stood  forth  as  a  color-bearer,  leading 
the  hosts  forward,  but  soon  his  flag-staff 
was  found  to  have  a  spear  at  the  end  of 
it.  Without  the  polished  scholarship  of 
Edward  Everett,  without  the  elegant  grace 
and  charm  of  Wendell  Phillips,  without 
the  universal  genius  of  Beecher,  this  re- 
former brought  to  his  task  a  certain  inborn 
impulsive,  magnetic,  all-enkindling  elo- 
quence, that  defies  analysis,  yet  for  platform 
work  has  certainly  never  been  surpassed, 
perhaps  never  equaled.  Once  in  a  century 
it  is  given  to  a  great  actor  like  Irving  to 
207 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

put  some  play  of  Shakespeare  on  the  stage 
ninety  nights  in  succession.  But  Gough 
entered  Exeter  Hall  in  London,  and  for 
ninety  successive  nights,  with  ever-chang- 
ing lecture,  crowded  that  vast  amphitheater 
to  the  streets  with  merchants,  bankers, 
scholars,  with  outcasts  and  drunkards.  His 
voice  was  a  noble  instrument  of  many  keys; 
his  eyes  were  large  and  liquid,  overflowing 
with  kindness,  sympathy  and  good  humor; 
he  had  a  dramatic  delivery  and  power  of 
imitation  that  were  of  the  highest  order; 
with  unrivaled  skill  he  poured  forth  anec- 
dotes, witticisms,  pathetic  stories,  and  argu- 
ments, also,  that  were  merciless  in  their 
logic  and  all-convincing  in  their  conclusions. 
For  two  hours  each  evening  we  have  seen 
him  walk  from  one  end  of  the  platform  to 
the  other,  so  that  the  hearer  might  ask  the 
question,  asked  of  an  old  Roman  orator, 
4 'How  many  miles  have  you  talked  to- 
night ?" 

In  forty  years  he  addressed  fourteen 
thousand  audiences,  averaging  one  thou- 
sand hearers  each,  and  traveled  more  miles 
on  his  lecture  tours  than  would  reach  twenty 
times  around  the  globe.  Yet  by  keeping 
268 


Frances  Willard 

close  to  God's  heart  and  the  people,  he 
went  on  gaining  in  freshness  to  the  very 
end.  At  last  standing  before  a  vast  audi- 
ence in  Philadelphia,  hfe  lifted  his  hand, 
and  with  an  impressive  gesture,  said:  "I 
have  seven  years  in  the  record  of  my  life 
when  I  was  held  in  the  iron  grasp  of  intem- 
perance. I  would  give  the  world  to  blot  it 
out;  but  alas!  I  cannot."  Then  with  flam- 
ing face  and  uplifted  eyes,  he  exclaimed, 
"  Therefore,  young  men,  make  your  record 
clean."  And  because  God  would  have 
these  words  ever  before  America's  youth, 
upon  the  instant  came  the  final]  imperious 
summons,  and  he  fell  like  a  soldier,  face  to 
face  with  his  foe,  and  knighted  in  the  very 
thick  of  his  battle. 

If  God  oft  withdraws  His  leaders,  He 
makes  His  work  go  on.  The  period  of  emo- 
tional excitement  and  national  enthusiasm 
was  now  to  pass  into  a  period  of  organiza- 
tion and  legislative  enactment.  At  a  crit- 
ical moment  a  gifted  woman  came  forward 
to  organize  a  work  for  women  through 
women.  Not  but  that  Frances  Willard  was 
an  orator  as  well  as  an  organizer.  Doubt- 
less those  who  dwell  in  great  cities  and  have 
269 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

only  heard  her  speak  in  great  halls  holding 
two  or  three  thousand  people  can  have  little 
conception  of  her  genius  for  public  speech. 
In  the  very  nature '  of  the  case  she  did  not 
have  a  voice  like  Webster  or  Beecher,  whose 
tones  in  times  of  great  excitement  made  the 
windows  to  rattle,  while  some  said,  ''It 
thunders.0 

Her  greatest  oratorical  triumphs  were  in 
villages  and  cities  where  some  hall  holding 
not  more  than  a  thousand  people  was 
crowded  with  appreciative  listeners.  At 
such  times  she  stood  forth  one  of  the  most 
gifted  speakers  of  this  generation,  achiev- 
ing effects  that  were  truly  amazing.  What 
ease  and  grace  of  bearing!  What  gentle- 
ness and  strength!  What  pathos  and  sym- 
pathy! How  exquisitely  modulated  her 
words!  If  her  speech  did  not  flow  as  a  gulf 
stream,  if  it  did  not  beat  like  an  ocean  upon 
a  continent,  she  sent  her  sentences  forth, 
an  arrowy  flight,  and  each  "tipped  with 
divine  fire. ' '  Those  students  of  great  orators 
who  have  lingered  long  over  the  master- 
pieces of  politics  and  reform  are  those  who 
have  most  admired  the  oratorical  method 
Frances  Willard  developed  upon  the  plat- 
270 


Frances  Willard 

form.  What  a  world  of  meaning  she 
crowded  into  some  of  her  epigrams,  like 
"The  golden  rule  of  Christ  will  bring  the 
golden  age  to  man/'  When  the  distin- 
guished philanthropists  and  reformers  and 
citizens  of  England  assembled  in  the  City 
Temple  of  London  to  give  her  a  reception, 
and  heaped  upon  her  the  highest  honors, 
those  of  us  who  listened  to  her  response 
knew  that  her  reserves  of  character  were 
vast  indeed.  With  what  simplicity  and 
modesty  did  she  decline  all  praise,  insisting 
that  she  received  these  honors  simply  in  the 
name  of  the  women  of  America,  for  whom 
England  intended  them. 

In  that  time  of  strained  political  relations 
between  the  two  nations,  with  what  fine 
patriotism  did  she  speak  of  her  flag,  saying: 
"I  am  first  a  Christian,  then  I  am  a  Saxon, 
then  I  am  an  American,  and  when  I  get 
home  to  Heaven,  I  expect  to  register  from 
Evanston."  To  organize  a  great  political 
machine  that  represents  the  Republican  or 
Democratic  party,  where  cities  and  counties 
and  states  are  all  related  as  wheel  to  wheel, 
requires  the  skill  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
expert  politicians,  toiling  ceaselessly.  But 
271 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

beginning  with  nothing,  in  twenty  years, 
single-handed,  this  woman  organized  the 
women  of  her  country  into  a  vast  mechan- 
ism that  extended  to  village  and  city  and 
state  and  nation,  and  to  foreign  lands,  with 
machinery  for  public  agitation,  a  system  of 
temperance  journals  for  children  and  youth, 
for  securing  instruction  upon  the  nature  of 
stimulants  in  the  common  schools,  with 
more  than  sixty  different  departments  and 
methods  of  activity.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  measure  of  a  career  is  determined  by 
three  things:  First,  the  talent  that  ancestry 
gives;  second,  the  opportunity  that  events 
offer;  third,  the  movements  that  the  mind 
and  will  conceive  and  compel.  Doubtless 
for  Frances  Willard  ancestry  bestowed  rare 
gifts,  the  opportunity  was  unique,  but  that 
which  her  mind  and  heart  compelled  is  be- 
yond all  measurement.  As  in  times  past 
orators  have  used  the  names  Howard  and 
Nightingale  for  winging  their  words,  for  all 
the  ages  to  come  editors  and  publicists  and 
speakers  will  hold  up  the  name  of  Willard 
for  the  stimulus  and  inspiration  of  genera- 
tions yet  unborn. 

Sometimes  our  temperance  reformers  are 
272 


Frances  Willard 

counted  harsh  in  speech,  critical  in  temper, 
of  narrow  view-point,  lacking  in  generosity 
and  sanity  of  judgment.  But  broad  minds 
will  also  be  just  and  generous,  even  toward 
those  who  are  thought  to  be  extremists. 
The  very  heart  of  the  temperance  reform  is 
this  single  principle:  Those  strong  and  well- 
poised  persons  who  will  never  be  injured 
by  the  use  of  wine  owe  something  to  the 
weak  ones  who  will  be  destroyed  thereby. 
When  for  three  generations  a  family  uses 
liquor  in  excess,  nature  registers  the  deteri- 
oration. His  biographer  tells  us  that  the  first 
Webster  represented  colossal  strength  and 
sobriety.  This  giant  had  a  son,  Daniel, 
who  represented  colossal  strength  and  mod- 
erate drinking,  while  his  son  represented 
erratic  strength,  and  his  grandson  represented 
one  who  made  the  amusements  of  his  ances- 
tors to  be  his  occupation.  Often  ancestry  ex- 
plains these  who  are  born  with  soft  nerve 
and  flabby  brain,  and,  like  the  reed,  bow 
before  the  wind  of  temptation.  And  the 
strong  owe  them  sympathy,  shelter,  and 
protection.  Our  age  is  still  cruel  and  harsh 
toward  the  children  of  weakness  and  temp- 
tation. Our  alleys  and  tenement-houses  are 
273 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

filled  with  the  children  of  ignorance  and 
squalor,  who  have  been  cursed  by  centuries 
of  misrule  and  superstition  under  foreign 
governments,  who  were  born  without  nerve 
or  poise  or  self-control.  And  for  the  state 
to  place  stimulants  in  their  hand  is  for  a 
parent  to  give  pistols,  razors,  and  bomb- 
shells to  babes  to  use  as  playthings. 

Every  year  our  nation  expends  $1,100, - 
000,000  for  liquor,  about  $10,000,000  for 
art,  and  $10,000,000  for  literature,  and 
$5,000,000  for  missions  and  the  ameliora- 
tion of  the  poor.  The  wastes  through 
intemperance  in  one  American  city  alone  in 
ten  years  equal  the  destruction  of  two  Chi- 
cago fires.  Could  the  children  of  poverty 
in  Chicago  be  induced  to  give  up  their 
whisky  and  beer  for  the  next  ten  years,  the 
saving  would  develop  a  playground  for  chil- 
dren in  the  center  of  every  ward,  develop 
gymnasiums  and  bath-houses  equal  to  those 
of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  erect  a  Parthenon 
enriched  with  the  pictures  and  statues  of 
the  great  men  of  history,  build  and  equip 
twenty  manual  training  schools  equal  to  the 
largest  in  our  city,  erect  ten  art  institutes, 
representing  the  treasures  of  our  museum. 
274 


Frances  Willard 

To  all  young  men  and  maidens  comes  the 
reflection  that  all  the  splendid  gifts  named 
talent,  beauty,  wealth,  and  position  have 
their  crowning  glory  when  used  for  the  poor 
and  weak.  The  lives  of  the  heroes  and  re- 
formers tell  us  that  supremacy  does  not  come 
through  running  with  the  currents  or  flat- 
tering the  great  in  the  interests  of  position, 
or  falling  in  with  the  multitude  that  the 
tides  of  public  favor  may  sweep  one  on  to 
fame  and  fortune.  To-day  to  many  a  youth 
tempted  to  ease  and  prosperity  and  dreams 
of  ambition  comes  the  silent  voice  of  con- 
science and  of  Christ,  bidding  him  adhere  to 
principle,  not  policy,  and  service  rather  than 
selfishness,  and  burden-bearing  rather  than 
ease  and  luxury.  And  to  many  a  girl  to- 
day, with  her  beauty  and  culture  and  gifts 
that  prophesy  rare  social  success,  will  come 
the  sirens  singing  of  ease  and  luxury  and 
position. 

And  in  the  hour  of  her  temptation  she 
will  sin  against  her  higher  ideals,  marry 
downward  instead  of  upward,  choose  a  nest 
that  is  soft  and  silken,  to  find  long  after- 
ward that  the  palace  of  luxury  is  none  other 
than  a  prison;  only  when  the  years  have 
275 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

gone,  suddenly  to  meet  one  standing  in  the 
way  like  unto  the  angel  of  God,  whom  God 
intended  as  true  mate,  and  then,  behold! 
life  is  but  dust  and  ashes!  Oh,  life  is  full 
of  piteous  tragedies!  What  hells  in  kings' 
houses!  What  heavens  in  garrets!  What 
bond-slaves  of  poverty  as  well 'as  luxury! 
What  princesses  are  these  named  "The  Sis- 
ters of  the  Poor"!  How  does  happiness 
bubble  like  a  spring  in  the  heart  of  these 
heroes  who  turn  their  back  upon  the  blan- 
dishments of  position  and  place,  and  where 
others  have  said,  "The  devil  take  the  hind- 
most/' have  said,  "I  will  take  the  hind- 
most"! Oh,  happy,  thrice  happy,  shall  we 
be  if  in  that  day  of  revelation  some  one 
once  wounded  like  a  bird  stands  forth,  some 
one  once  stormed  and  in  sore  need  of  a 
harbor  and  refuge,  some  of  Christ's  little 
ones,  once  scarred  and  battered  with  their 
sins,  shall  rise  up  and  with  shining  face  say, 
"Master,  I  was  sick,  I  was  in  prison,  I  was 
an  hungered,  and  this  one,  Thy  disciple, 
ministered  unto  me  "  !  There,  that  radiant 
word  shall  repay  you  a  thousand  times  for 
the  obloquy,  defeat,  scorn,  and  misfortunes 
that  always  have  been  heaped  upon  Christ's 
heroes  and  reformers. 
276 


XI 

Blaikie's  "Personal  Life  of  David  Living- 
stone"— A  Study  of  Nineteenth-Cen- 
tury Heroism 


When  profane  history  spreads  out  before  you  the 
bloody  rpage  of  Alexander,  and  Caesar,  and  Nero,  and 
your  heart  feels  faint  and  sick,  turn  away  and  look 
upon  these  missionary  faces  that  have  gone  from 
earth  to  heaven,  and  your  eyes  will  dim  with  tears  of 
gratitude  that  God  made  man  so  noble  in  feelings 
and  in  destiny.  Guizot  and  Hallam  and  all  the  phil- 
osophers of  history  tell  us  what  good  influences  > 
from  the  knights-errant  that  wandered  for  a  few  gen- 
erations over  Europe.  We  are  assured  that  they 
rode  to  and  fro  with  helmet  and  sword  and 
the  interest  of  equity.  It  is  possible  that  they  devel- 
oped military  prowess  and  some  new  conception  of 
personal  honor.  But  whenever  the  world's  civiliza- 
tion shall  desire  to  see  the  heroes  that  laid  the 
deep  foundations  of  our  age  and  the  coming  more 
golden  time,  it  will  have  to  pass  by  the  glittering 
mail  of  knights  and  see  the  Pauls,  and  Marquettes, 
and  Elliotts,  and  Duffs  moving  around  wearing  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit  and  the  richly  jeweled  helmet  of 
salvation. 

O,  the  loftiest  spirit  of  earth,  the  soul  of  a  Paul,  or 
a  Xavier,  or  a  Livingstone.  It  is  said  that  men  throw 
their  offerings  down  at  the  feet  of  the  gods  because 
the  human  eye  is  unable  to  see  and  the  human  arm 
too  short  to  enable  the  worshiper  to  place  his  gar- 
lands upon  the  forehead  of  Deity.  With  similar 
weakness  and  humility  we  all,  of  a  mercenary  and 
infidel  age,  being  unable  to  see  and  reach  the  divine 
forehead  of  this  missionary  spirit,  that  loftiest  shape 
of  soul,  cannot  do  otherwise  than  come  to-day  and 
whisper  our  words  of  homage  at  her  f  eet.—  Truths  for 
To-day,  pp.  191,  ig2, 193. 


XI 

BLAIKIE'S    ^PERSONAL    LIFE    OF    DAVID 

LI  YIN-  " — A    STUDY    OF    NINE- 

TEENTH-CENTURY HEROISM 

From  the  beginning  of  time  man  has  been 
a  lover  of  bravery  and  a  worshiper  of  heroes. 
Tales  of  eloquence  are  interesting,  but 
stories  of  courage  have  always  seemed  the 
most  fascinating  books  in  libraries.  For 
the  most  part  the  heroes  of  liberty,  phil- 
anthropy, and  religion  have  gone  through 
life  in  a  garb  of  self-sacrifice  and  modesty, 
but  once  the  great  man  is  fully  revealed 
society  hastens  to  break  its  alabaster  box 
upon  his  forehead  and  bathes  his  feet  with 
admiring  tears.  Of  old,  men  traced  Caesar's 
march  through  Gaul  by  the  villages  he  de- 
stroyed and  the  fields  he  devastated ;  but  we 
trace  the  heroes'  progress  through  the  cen- 
turies by  the  wastes  that  have  become  gar- 
dens and  the  deserts  that  now  are  Edens. 
Indeed,  the  history  of  society  is  very 
largely  the  history  of  a  handful  of  heroesv 
279 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

who  have  died  perhaps  in  the  desert  or  on 
the  battlefield,  but  who  in  dying  bequeathed 
a  republic  to  followers  who  had  been  serfs 
or  slaves. 

If  we  call  the  roll  of  all  the  great  achieve- 
ments for  mankind,  the  extinction  of  gladi- 
atorial games,  the  trial  of  witnesses  by  fire 
prohibited,  the  bonds  of  serfs  broken,  the 
exposure  of  children  forbidden,  the  doing 
away  with  the  wrecker's  rights,  we  shall  find 
that  each  new  victory  for  our  race  begins 
with  some  valiant  leader  who  died  for  his 
book  of  reform  or  philanthropy.  But  such 
is  the  hero's  power  that  his  spirit  cannot  be 
holden,  even  of  death  itself.  Standing  in 
the  clouds  of  heaven,  the  ascended  poet  or 
leader,  soldier  or  saint,  rains  down  inspira- 
tion upon  the  multitude,  and  soon  lifts  the 
whole  people  to  his  level.  Once  death 
clears  the  clouds  from  some  great  soul 
named  Socrates  or  Savonarola,  Luther  or 
Livingstone,  the  people  follow  after  his  ex- 
ample, as  once  the  Roman  multitude  fol- 
lowed the  chariot  of  some  conqueror.  Man 
does  well  to  worship  his  heroes,  for  these 
are  they  who  have  lifted  the  gates  of  the 
prisons  from  their  hinges,  broken  the 
280 


David  Livingstone 

swords  of  tyrants,  and  led  the  pilgrim  hosts 
into  "the  promised  land"  of  learning  and 
liberty. 

To  our  pleasure-loving  generation  comes 
the  career  of  David  Livingstone,  telling  us 
that  tl)£  age  of  heroism  has  not  ended  and 
must  not  end.  If  for  the  countless  millions 
of  the  Dark  Continent  Livingstone's  legend 
has  become  a  "pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  a 
pillar  of  fire  by  night,"  leading  them  out  of 
the  bondage  and  the  wilderness,  his  influ- 
ence upon  civilized  nations  has  been  scarcely 
less,  rebuking  our  ease  and  smiting  self-in- 
dulgence. For  courage  in  Livingstone  was 
as  high  and  fine  as  in  Sir  Galahad  of  old. 
Heroism  was  in  his  blood  like  iron,  in  his 
eye  like  fire,  in  his  voice  like  the  trum- 
pet call.  This  man,  who  flung  himself  upon 
the  African  slave  traffic,  and  single-handed 
determined  to  give  a  continent  to  commerce 
and  Christianity — this  scarred  hero  differs 
from  our  perfumed  effeminates  as  an  iron- 
clad differs  from  a  pleasure  yacht,  as  a 
piece  of  iron  from  a  painted  lath,  as  Crom- 
well differs  from  some  Beau  Brummell. 
History  holds  no  career  so  strangely 
.-narked  by  heroic  adventure  and  hairbreadth 
281 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

escapes,  perils  in  jungle  and  perils  in  swamp, 
perils  of  the  lion's  stroke  and  the  serpent's 
bite,  perils  of  war-clubs  and  poisoned  ar- 
rows, perils  of  dwarfs  in  forests  and  strong 
men  in  the  hill  country.  In  1842,  when 
Livingstone  first  landed  upon  the  African 
coast  and  determined  to  penetrate  the  very 
heart  of  the  Dark  Continent,  Africa  was 
the  land  of  horrors  and  of  mystery,  kn 
only  to  the  traders  who  penetrated  the 
edge  of  the  forest  to  trap  slaves  for  Cuban 
plantations.  Since  then  no  other  con- 
tinent has  experienced  changes  so  wide- 
reaching  as  this  country,  now  known  as  the 
land  of  gold  and  gems,  the  land  of  ivory, 
pearls,  and  perfumes,  the  land  of  amber, 
spices,  and  rich  woods,  the  land  of  the 
black  races,  where  God  has  chiseled  His 
"image  in  ebony." 

To-day,  obedient  to  Livingstone's  call  for 
staying  the  ravages  of  the  slave  traffic, 
Europe  is  carving  Africa  into  free  states. 
Explorers  are  perfecting  their  maps  of  rivers, 
mountains,  and  plains.  Merchants  are 
traversing  the  country  with  roads  and  rail- 
ways. Statesmen  are  enacting  laws  that 
shall  abolish  the  last  vestige  of  the  traffic  in 
282 


David  Livingstone 

men.  The  tragedy  of  Gordon  at  Khartoum, 
the  intrepid  explorations  of  Stanley,  the 
fame  of  gold  fields  of  the  Cape  and  diamond 
fields  of  Kimberley,  have  made  the  whole 
world  aware  of  the  marvels  of  this  rich  con- 
tinent. If  the  nineteenth  century  has  made 
the  black  slave  a  free  man,  the  twentieth 
century  bids  fair  to  make  the  Dark  Conti- 
nent the  land  of  light  and  liberty.  And 
this  wonderland  is  practically  Livingstone's 
gift  to  civilization.  His  twenty-nine  thou- 
sand miles  of  discovery  and  exploration 
added  one  million  square  miles  to  the  known 
world.  His  studies  of  Africa's  geology, 
botany,  and  zoology  won  for  him  the  high- 
est honors  that  scientific  societies  could 
bestow.  His  writings  upon  African  flora 
and  fauna  won  for  him  the  esteem  of  the 
world's  then  greatest  scientists,  like  Owen, 
Murchison,  and  Herschel.  His  studies  of 
the  African  languages  lent  him  fame  among 
philologists.  With  Sir  Bartle  Frere  let  us 
confess  that  in  ages  to  come  he  will  be  known 
as  a  hero — one  of  the  bravest  men  in  his- 
tory, being  to  the  Dark  Continent  what 
Lincoln  was  to  our  own  country. 

Fascinating    indeed    the   childhood    and 
283 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

youth  of  this  hero,  whose  character  and 
career  make  it  hard  to  disbelieve  in  the 
divine  origin  of  the  Christianity  that  molded 
him.  He  was  of  Scotland's  sturdiest  stock, 
and  was  hammered  out  upon  the  anvil  of 
adversity.  The  courage  and  spirit  of 
Robert  Bruce  and  his  heroic  clansmen  were 
in  this  Highland  son,  and  in  later  yearsj|pie 
seen  a  thousand  times  in  moments  ^Xen 
Livingstone  marched  into  the  camp  of  armed 
warriors,  and  without  a  single  fear  lay  down 
to  sleep  in  the  midst  of  these  painted 
savages.  Not  wealth  nor  ease,  leisure  nor 
social  rank  equipped  him;  adversity  chose 
him  for  her  knight.  The  child  of  pov- 
erty, at  ten  years  of  age  he  entered  the 
factory,  where  six  o'clock  in  the  morning 
found  his  little  fingers  guiding  the  thread, 
and  when  the  evening  darkness  fell  he  was 
still  standing  beside  the  loom.  The  first 
half-crown  he  earned  went  for  a  Latin  gram- 
mar, which  he  fastened  to  the  frame  of  his 
wheel,  while  between  the  revolutions  he 
snatched  a  moment  for  his  nouns  and  verbs. 
At  sixteen  he  finished  his  Virgil,  Horace, 
and  Cicero,  and  best  of  all  had  formed  those 
habits  of  patient  and  accurate  research  that 
284 


David  Livingstone 

long  continued  made  him  at  last  a  ripe 
scholar.  Taking  up  the  study  of  history,  , 
politics,  and  literature,  he  became  interested 
in  the  ministry,  and  made  his  way  to  Glas- 
gow, where  he  hired  a  garret,  cooked  his 
oatmeal  and  studied,  made  a  little  tea  and 
studied,  went  forth  to  walk,  but  studied 
ever.  Interested  in  the  classics,  he  laid  the 
foundations  for  his  study  of  the  dialects  of 
Africa.  An  eager  student  of  the  sciences, 
he  fitted  himself  for  his  researches  in  geol- 
ogy, geography,  and  botany.  Later  he 
entered  the  medical  college,  and  studied 
surgery,  achieving  the  skill  that  made  him 
seem  to  the  Africans  a  divine  healer.  Then 
he  went  up  to  London,  and  there  pursued 
his  researches  in  philosophy,  theology,  and 
ethics. 

At  the  moment  when  he  was  ordained  to 
the  ministry  the  opium  war  was  dragging  on 
in  China,  and  he  determined  to  make  his 
way  to  the  Celestial  kingdom.  But  in  that 
hour  he  met  Moffat,  newly  arrived  [from 
Africa,  who  argued  that  the  Dark  Continent 
needed  some  one  who  had  the  courage  to 
leave  the  coast  and  march  straight  into  the 
interior,  where  on  a  clear  morning;  from  a 
285 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

mountain-top,  the  traveler  might  see  smoke 
rising  from  a  thousand  villages  in  which  no 
foreigner  had  ever  stood.  But  the  danger 
of  African  fever  or  of  death  by  the  natives, 
the  danger  of  sunstroke  was  so  great  that 
the  board  would  not  assign  him  to  Africa. 
In  the  hour  of  his  insistence  the  directors 
gave  their  consent,  but  disclaimed  all  respon- 
sibility for  the  perilous  undertaking.  Learn- 
ing that  the  South  African  steamer  was  to 
sail  almost  immediately,  Livingstone  hurried 
home  to  bid  his  parents  farewell.  Arriving 
at  evening,  all  night  long  father  and  mother 
and  son  sat  talking  of  the  perils  and  possi- 
bilities of  the  Dark  Continent,  and  when  the 
morning  light  crept  over  the  hills  the  son 
read  the  words,  "Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid 
of  the  terror  by  night,  nor  of  the  arrow  that 
flieth  by  day."  Then  began  the  walk  to 
Glasgow.  On  the  hilltop  hard  by,  father 
and  son  looked  into  each  other's  faces  for 
the  last  time.  Then  Livingstone  set  his 
face  toward  the  Dark  Continent,  little 
dreaming  that  the  time  would  come  when 
the  Glasgow  whose  shores  he  was  leaving 
would  give  him  tumultuous  welcome  home, 
cover  him  with  medals  and  resolutions,  and 
286 


David  Livingstone 

bestow  the  freedom  of  the  city  upon  her 
most  distinguished  citizen. 

If  Florence  Nightingale  speaks  of  David 
Livingstone  as  "the  most  remarkable  man 
of  his  generation,"  the  events  of  his  early 
career  in  South  Africa  seem  to  fully  justify 
the  judgment.  Landing  at  the  Cape,  with 
characteristic  courage  the  young  hero 
plunged  at  once  into  the  forest  and  secluded 
himself  from  all  but  the  natives,  that  he 
might  master  the  language,  habits,  and 
ideas  of  the  people.  At  the  end  of  seven 
months  he  reappeared  upon  the  coast,  able 
to  converse  with  African  chiefs  with  perfect 
ease.  In  his  enthusiasm  he  began  collect- 
ing provisions  for  a  tour  of  a  thousand  miles 
into  the  interior.  Then  for  six  months  he 
marched  north  toward  the  heart  of  Africa. 
But  at  the  moment  when  scores  of  un- 
friendly tribes  were  between  him  and  his 
friends  upon  the  coast,  his  oxen  died,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  desert  his  supplies.  In  that 
hour  he  packed  his  luggage  and  trudged  on, 
keeping  only  his  medicines  and  remedies. 

Entering  some  village  that  had  never  seen 
the  face  of  a  white  man,  he  would  march 
with  erect  fearlessness  through  the  ranks  of 
287 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

warriors,  and  with  a  genial  smile  and  out- 
stretched hand  boldly  enter  the  tent  of  the 
chief.  His  courageous  manner,  gentle  ad- 
dress, and  kindly  spirit  seemed  to  cast  a  spell 
upon  all  hearts,  and  he  soon  received  not 
simply  protection,  but  even  reverence  and 
homage  from  those  whom  Boers  and  Arabs 
called  treacherous  and  wily  imps  and  dc 
Yet  in  years  not  one  single  article  was 
stolen  from  him,  and  because  his  presence 
was  a  boon  to  the  people  he  was  treated  as 
a  kind  of  superior  being.  His  fame  began 
as  a  rainmaker.  Assembling  the  n, 
chiefs,  he  led  them  to  the  head  of  a  rich 
valley  that  had  been  overtaken  by  drought, 
and  there  outlined  a  plan  of  irrigation  with 
canals  and  reservoirs.  When  a  year  had 
passed — lo,  the  little  valley  was  a  garden  of 
beauty  and  delight.  Sending  to  the  coast 
for  a  dozen  tool  chests,  he  taught  the  peo- 
ple carpentering,  the  building  of  houses  and 
barns,  and  the  making  of  wagons.  He 
started  an  agricultural  school,  and  developed 
vineyards  and  orchards,  and  taught  the 
grafting  of  fruits,  the  raising  of  grains,  and 
the  care  of  stock.  He  enrolled  two  hun- 
dred women  in  an  industrial  school,  where 
288 


David  Livingstone 

his  wife  taught  dressmaking  and  housekeep- 
ing, while  he  taught  the  use  of  foods,  the 
care  of  the  eyes  and  ears  and  the  general 
health,  with  remedies  for  diseases  of  child- 
hood. 

When  the  first  Christian  missionary  landed 
in  England  in  590,  he  found  our  Saxon 
forefathers  were  cannibals,  wearing  coats  of 
skin,  worshiping  charms,  and  eating  the 
flesh  of  enemies  slain  in  battle.  But  nine 
hundred  years  of  Christian  instruction 
ushered  in  the  era  of  Shakespeare.  In  like 
manner  Livingstone's  ideal  was  to  teach  as 
a  Christian  gentleman  with  a  typical  Eng- 
lish home.  When  seven  years  had  passed 
by  he  beheld  a  transformation  how  mar- 
velous. He  built  a  house,  and  straightway 
the  chief  erected  a  home  like  it.  He  filled 
a  space  in  front  of  his  home  with  flower- 
beds; soon  all  the  tents  were  surrounded 
with  brilliant  blossoms.  He  assembled  the 
children  and  youth  on  Sunday  morning  for 
instruction,  and  the  chief  sent  out  servants 
with  whips  of  rhinoceros  skin  and  drove  in 
five  hundred  young  men,  that  Livingstone 
might  instruct  them.  His  days  were  filled 
with  husbandry,  wagon-making,  stock-rais- 
289 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

ing,  while  his  evenings  were  occupied  with 
the  instruction  of  twenty-five  young  men 
whom  he  was  training  to  carry  on  his  work. 
It  was  here,  too,  that  he  had  his  famous 
adventure  with  the  lion,  and  suffered  that 
injury  to  his  arm  that  made  possible  the 
identification  of  his  body  when  his  faithful 
Susa  brought  the  bones  to  London. 

One  autumn  the  cattle  suffered  severely 
through  the  midnight  attack  of  lions,  and 
Livingstone  planned  to  make  a  circuit  about 
the  herd  in  the  hope  of  driving  the  wild 
beasts  toward  the  center.  In  the  morning, 
moving  through  the  high  grass,  he  came 
suddenly  upon  a  beast  that  sprang  full  upon 
him  and  brought  him  to  the  ground.  "  lie 
caught  me  by  the  shoulder,"  writes  Living- 
stone, "and  shook  me  as  I  have  seen  a  ter- 
rier shake  a  rat.  The  shock  produced  a 
stupor  like  that  produced  to  a  mouse  in  the 
grip  of  a  cat.  It  caused  a  sense  of  dreami- 
ness." He  says  he  was  quite  conscious  of 
all  that  was  happening.  "It  was  like  a 
patient  under  the  influence  of  chloroform, 
who  is  conscious  of  the  operation,  but  does 
not  feel  the  knife,  perhaps  a  merciful  pro- 
vision of  the  Creator  for  lessening  the  pain 
290 


David  Livingstone 

of  death."  A  moment  later  the  beast  in 
the  agony  of  death  dropped  the  arm,  its 
bones  crushed,  the  flesh  in  shreds.  But  the 
slave-dealers,  who  feared  him,  were  more 
cruel  than  wild  beasts.  Returning  from  the 
coast,  where  he  had  gone  to  send  his  family 
home  to  England,  he  found  that  the  Boers 
had  sacked  the  villages,  burned  all  his 
buildings,  destroyed  his  tents  and  vines,  and 
scattered  his  people.  Then  it  was  that  he 
determined  to  launch  a  crusade  against  the 
traffic  in  human  flesh,  and  bring  the  Portu- 
guese and  Spanish  slavers  before  the  court 
of  the  world. 

The  wanderings  of  Ulysses  are  not  more 
fascinating  than  this  epoch  of  discovery  and 
exploration  that  now  began  for  Livingstone. 
With  no  guide  but  his  compass,  he  deter- 
mined to  plunge  into  the  interior  and  cross 
the  Dark  Continent,  hoping  to  come  out 
somewhere  near  the  mouth  of  the  Congo 
River.  Warned  that  this  was  a  forlorn 
hope,  he  wrote  a  letter  home  to  England, 
saying:  "I  shall  open  up  a  path  through 
this  continent  or  perish.  My  blessings  on 
my  wife.  May  God  comfort  her.  If  I 
never  return,  my  Paris  medal  goes  to 
291 


Great  Books  as  Life  Teachers 

Thomaa,   my  sextant  to  Robert."     Then, 
having  no  supporters,   like   Stanley  or  Sir 
Samuel  Baker,  having  no  guides,  no  maps, 
no  army  of  aids,  he  plunged  into  the  forest 
to  follow  the  stars  and  be  guided  by  his  com- 
pass and  astronomical  instruments.    His  bag- 
gage, carried  by  natives,  consisted  of  twenty 
pounds  of  coffee  and  a  like  amount  of  tea. 
For  his  food  he  depended  upon  his  gun  and 
three  muskets  for  natives.       He  also  had 
three  tin  boxes,  each  fifteen  inches  square, 
one  filled  with  beads,   one  with  clothing, 
and   one   with    medicines.     To    this   scant 
equipment  he  added  a  tent,  which  was  just 
large   enough  to  shield  him   from  the  rain 
when  lying  down.     The  perils  that  he  en- 
dured during  the  five  years  in  the  wilderness 
well-nigh  surpass  belief.     He  found  the  vast 
tropic  jungle  one  tangled  maze  well-nigh 
impenetrable,  with  trees  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  high,  shutting  out  the  sun  by  day 
and  making  the  darkness  by  night  well-nigh 
palpable.     The   rich   and   reeking  soil  sent 
up  an  undergrowth  of  thorns  and  briers  that 
tore  the  flesh,   while  stinging  nettles  were 
often  waist-deep.     Rain  also  fell  every  other 
day  for  months,  and  he  scarcely  knew  what 
292 


NIVERSITY 

v  '  .     '  ' 

C^5j£*L'F$RN\^x 
^^^fi^i    i~^-^^>1^ 


David  Livingstone 

it  was  to  have  dry  feet  or  garments.  He 
waded  and  swam  hundreds  of  streams  and 
rivers.  Once,  tying  logs  together  for  a  raft, 
a  hippopotamus  attacked  it  and  threw  Liv- 
ingstone into  the  river.  Lying  down  to 
sleep,  a  lion  sprang  upon  two  of  his  men 
and  slew  them.  He  was  bitten  by  serpents, 
and  twice  his  life  hung  in  the  balance. 

Once  mistaken  for  a  slave-driver,  he  came 
near  having  his  brains  beaten  out  with  war- 
clubs.  Another  time  he  found  himself 
alone  in  the  midst  of  a  mob  of  armed  sav- 
ages. Amusing  them  with  his  watch,  com- 
pass, and  sextant,  he  backed  to  the  river 
bank,  got  into  a  log  canoe  that  he  had  made, 
and  holding  up  his  magic  lantern  for  them 
to  look  at  got  across  the  stream  and  found 
his  men  again.  He  traveled  for  three  hun- 
dred miles  through  a  swampy  region,  where 
the  marsh  gases  threatened  his  life.  In  two 
years  he  suffered  twenty-seven  attacks  of 
African  fever,  lasting  from  one  to  three 
weeks.  The  result  was  that  during  the  last 
three  hundred  miles  of  his  journey  he  was 
so  dizzy  that  he  could  not  hold  his  instru- 
ment steady  nor  perform  a  single  calcula- 
tion, nor  tell  the  time  of  day  nor  the  day  of 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

the  week.  At  last  his  faithful  men  tiec 
him  upon  an  ox  that  they  led  slowly  forward, 
When  Xenophon's  soldiers,  in  the  retreal 
of  the  Ten  Thousand,  saw  the  sea,  they  joy- 
fully exclaimed:  "The  sea!  The  sea!" 
But  when  Livingstone's  servants  emerged 
from  the  dark  forest  the  traveler  was  sea 
conscious  enough  to  understand  the  scene, 
and  his  faithful  men  having  never  seen  the 
ocean,  knelt  about  him  in  their  alarm  and 
said,  "The  world  says,  'I  am  finished. 
There  is  no  more  of  me.'  "  Worn  to  a 
skeleton,  scarcely  able  to  understand  his 
deliverance,  for  weeks  Livingstone  lay  in 
the  home  of  the  consul,  battling  with  the 
African  fever  and  struggling  back  to  life. 

Then  he  set  himself  to  the  task  of  com- 
pleting  his  maps  and  charts  containing  the 
notes  as  to  the  width  and  depth  of  rivers 
and  streams,  the  direction  of  their  flow, 
and  the  country  they  drained;  accounts  of 
the  forests,  the  various  woods  and  grains, 
and  also  perfected  his  geological,  botanical, 
and  zoological  notes.  When  his  task  was 
nearing  completion  an  English  steamer 
anchored  near  shore,  and  the  captain  offered 
Livingstone  passage  home,  where  friends 
294 


David  Livingstone 

and  fame  awaited  him.  But  Livingstone 
had  promised  his  natives  that  if  they  would 
be  true  to  him  he  would  return  them  to 
their  friends  in  safety.  And  so,  putting 
away  all  thoughts  of  home  and  love,  he 
turned  back  again  for  a  journey  of  two  thou- 
sand miles  straight  across  Africa  from  west 
to  east,  being  destined  to  discover  the  Vic- 
toria Falls,  and  to  undergo  sufferings  and 
adventures  such  as  have  characterized  the 
career  of  no  discoverer  in  history.  Having 
brought  his  servants  home  again,  he  jour- 
neyed on  to  Juimaline,  where  he  arrived  in 
August,  1857,  after  five  years  of  solitude  in 
the  forests,  and  so  set  sail  for  home,  where 
he  was  destined  to  find  himself  the  most 
famous  man  then  in  the  British  Isles. 

A  modest  man  and  reticent,  Livingstone's 
welcome  home  brought  surprise  that  was 
bewilderment.  The  Royal  Geographical 
Society  received  him,  and  in  its  name  Sir 
Robert  Murchison  presented  him  with  a  gold 
medal.  London  hastened  to  do  him  honor, 
and  assembling  its  statesmen,  lords,  sci- 
entists, merchants,  the  lord  mayor  presented 
him  with  the  freedom  of  the  city.  Glasgow 
welcomed  him  home  with  a  public  recep- 
295 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

tion,  and  her  dignitaries  presented  Living- 
stone with  an  address  and  a  gold  box 
containing  ten  thousand  dollars  in  coin. 
Edinburgh,  Liverpool,  Dublin,  Manchester, 
and  a  score  of  other  cities  and  towns  voted 
him  public  honors  and  rich  gifts.  The  uni- 
versities of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  bestowed 
honorary  degrees,  as  did  Dublin,  Glasgow, 
and  Paris.  Addressing  the  Commercial 
Club  of  London,  he  exhibited  to  her  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers  specimens  of 
twenty-five  kinds  of  dried  fruits,  showed 
them  oils  of  which  they  had  never  heard, 
native  dyes  hitherto  unknown,  fibers  for 
making  paper,  told  them  of  sheep  that  had 
hair  instead  of  wool,  exhibited  specimens  of 
African  honey,  sugar-cane,  millet,  wheat, 
cotton,  iron,  and  coal.  He  insisted  that  it 
was  of  capital  importance  to  England  to 
open  up  a  railway  into  what  we  now  know 
as  the  Lake  Nyassa  region,  where  to-day 
England  is  building  a  railway  one  thousand 
miles  long. 

Indeed,   Livingstone  was  the  lion  of  the 
year,  and  his  popularity   was  such   as   to 
eclipse  the  fame  of  England's  greatest  lead- 
ers.    But  this  modest  traveler,  naturalist, 
296 


David  Livingstone 

scientist,  physician,  missionary,  soon  with- 
drew from  public  life,  and  secluding  himself 
in  the  old  home  in  Scotland,  wrote  out  his 
11  Missionary  Travels,"  in  the  hope  of  secur- 
ing funds  for  another  expedition.  "For," 
said  he,  in  the  outset  of  his  book,  "so  far 
as  my  calling  is  concerned,  the  end  of  the 
geographical  feat  is  only  the  beginning  of  my 
missionary  enterprise."  For  having  se- 
cured a  knowledge  of  the  country  and  free- 
dom for  the  body  of  slaves,  his  Christian 
spirit  rushed  on  to  include  Christ's  freedom 
for  the  mind  and  heart.  The  first  edition 
of  twelve  thousand  volumes  of  his  book  was 
sold  for  one  guinea,  and  was  taken  within  a 
single  week.  Finding  the  amount  sufficient 
to  provide  for  his  new  expedition,  he  imme- 
diately set  sail  for  Africa,  unspoiled  by 
honors  such  as  England  has  bestowed  upon 
but  two  or  three  men  of  this  century. 
Landing  at  Zanzibar,  he  went  immediately 
into  the  interior,  and  made  a  circle  of  a 
thousand  miles,  collecting  facts  that  secured 
governmental  interference  with  the  Portu- 
guese slave  traffic,  discovering  and  exploring 
the  sources  of  the  River  Zambesi,  Lake 
Nyassa,  and  finding  the  key  to  the  river 
297 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

system  that  explained  the  headwaters  of 
the  Nile.  Upon  his  return  to  the  coast  he 
found  his  wife  ill  with  African  fever,  uncon- 
scious, and  dying.  Three  months  later  an 
expedition  arrived  from  the  coast,  and  its 
leader  found  that  the  hero  who  had  faced  so 
many  dangers,  braved  so  many  deaths,  had 
at  last  lost  all  heart  and  hope,  for  he  had 
buried  his  life  with  Mary  Livingstone  at  the 
foot  of  a  great  babbali  tree.  When  another 
broken  and  sad  year  had  passed  in  travel, 
he  determined  to  return  to  England,  pub- 
lish the  record  of  his  five  years  of  travel,  sell 
the  manuscript,  arrange  for  his  sons'  future, 
and  set  sail  for  Africa,  to  make  one  last 
attempt  to  discover  the  headwaters  of  the 
Nile. 

Within  a  year  after  his  return  to  Africa 
Livingstone  was  a  thousand  miles  in  the 
interior,  in  the  midst  of  tribes  that  had 
never  seen  a  white  face.  Twenty-five  years 
of  exposure  and  privation  had  sorely  taxed 
his  strength,  but  he  adhered  unflinchingly 
to  his  determination  to  make  a  desperate 
effort  to  get  at  the  centers  of  the  slave 
trade,  collect  information  sufficient  to  justify 
a  congress  of  the  powers  for  concerted 
298 


David  Livingstone 

action  against  the  traffic  in  men,  and  also,  if 
possible,  discover  the  sources  of  the  Nile. 
When  Christmas  Day  of  1867  came  he  was 
so  weak  as  to  be  reduced  to  a  diet  of  milk, 
and  on  New  Year's  day  his  goats  were 
stolen  and  his  one  luxury  gone.  "Took  up 
my  belt  three  holes  to  relieve  hunger,"  was 
his  entry  New  Year's  day  of  1868.  Then 
for  three  months,  ill  with  rheumatic  fever, 
he  lay  in  a  rude  hut  that  his  men  built  for 
him.  One  day  he  saw  the  wild  bees  enter- 
ing a  hollow  tree,  and  writes:  "It  is  now 
two  years  since  I  have  tasted  sugar  or 
honey."  Traveling  slowly  through  the  for- 
est he  came  across  a  little  mound  beneath  a 
great  tree,  and  musing  there,  writes:  "I 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  trudge  on,  until 
He  who  has  brought  me  safe  thus  far  bids 
me  lie  down  beneath  His  trees  to  die." 

The  following  year  he  discovered  and  ex- 
plored Lake  Noero  and  Lake  Bankweolo, 
and  from  the  formation  of  the  country  de- 
veloped the  theory  that  in  the  great  lakes 
of  the  north,  of  which  the  natives  had  told 
him,  he  would  find  the  headwaters  of  the 
Nile — a  theory  that  later  proved  to  be  true. 
14 If  I  have  life,"  writes  the  old  hero,  "I  will 
299 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

yet  make  sure  of  it."  Then  he  renewed 
his  travels  northward,  trudging  slowly,  for 
he  was  weary  in  mind  and  body.  Unfor- 
tunately he  was  doomed  to  suffer  through 
the  treachery  of  the  slave-dealers.  Return- 
ing to  the  village  where  two  years  before  he 
had  left  his  supplies,  he  found  that  all  his 
stores  had  been  destroyed,  not  even  one 
dose  of  quinine  remaining.  It  was  in  No- 
vember of  1871,  while  striving  to  collect 
himself  from  the  shock  of  finding  that  he 
was  without  money,  beads,  calico,  or  goods 
to  hire  the  men  for  completing  his  work, 
that  his  faithful  Susa  came  crying :  '  *  Master, 
a  white  man  comes."  A  moment  later, 
leaning  on  his  staff  for  very  weakness,  Liv- 
ingstone grasped  the  hand  of  Stanley,  who 
had  been  sent  by  the  New  York  Herald  to 
find  Livingstone  if  living,  and  if  dead  to 
bring  home  his  bones.  That  night  his  jour- 
nal includes  these  words:  "The  news  I  have 
heard  from  Europe  makes  my  whole  frame 
thrill.  What  a  terrible  fate  has  befallen 
France  at  Sedan.  The  ocean  cable  success- 
fully laid  in  the  Atlantic,  the  election  of 
General  Grant  as  President,  the  death  of 
Lord  Clarendon.  The  voting  of  a  thousand 
300 


David  Livingstone 

pounds  by  Parliament  for  supplies  to  help 
my  work  has  put  new  life  into  me."  For 
four  months  these  two  men  wrought  to- 
gether, the  one  a  veteran  who  had  borne  the 
burden  and  heat  of  the  day,  the  other  a 
young  knight  who  had  but  just  won  his 
golden  spurs.  One  fact  was  certain,  the 
atmosphere  of  Livingstone  transformed  the 
spirit,  ambition,  motives,  and  character  of 
Stanley. 

The  young  traveler  at  length  came  to  look 
upon  Livingstone  as  one  who  deserved 
homage  and  worship.  What  a  portrait  is 
that  he  paints  of  Livingstone!  "His  gen- 
tleness never  forsakes  him,  his  hopefulness 
never  deserts.  No  harassing  anxieties  can 
make  him  complain.  To  the  stern  dictates 
of  duty  alone  has  he  sacrificed  home  and 
ease,  the  pleasures,  refinements,  and  lux- 
uries of  civilized  life.  His  is  the  Spartan 
heroism,  the  inflexibility  of  the  Roman,  the 
enduring  resolution  of  the  Anglo-Saxon — 
never  to  surrender  his  obligations  until  he 
can  write  '  finis*  to  his  work.  His  religion 
has  made  him  the  most  companionable  of 
men  and  indulgent  of  masters.  Each  Sun- 
day morning  he  gathers  his  little  flock  about 
301 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

him  and  reads  prayers  and  a  chapter  from 
the  Bible,  and  delivers  a  short  address  in  a 
natural,  unaffected,  and  sincere  tone.  The 
natives  passing  Livingstone  exclaim,  'The 
blessing  of  God  rest  on  you/  Despite 
every  argument  that  Stanley  could  use  for 
Livingstone  to  return  home,  the  hero 
refused  to  give  up  his  unfulfilled  purpose. 
Stanley  urged  the  claims  of  home  and 
friends,  what  a  reception  awaited  him  in 
England  and  America,  what  cheers  from 
great  societies  and  savants,  what  opportu- 
nity to  establish  missions  and  commerce  and 
suppress  the  slave  traffic!  One  morning  at 
four  o'clock  David  Livingstone  arose  and 
gave  into  Stanley's  hands  his  journal,  maps, 
charts,  and  notes  that  made  the  interior  of 
Africa  a  known  country,  and  with  the  single 
word  "God  bless  you,"  the  quiet,  reserved 
missionary  of  Jesus  Christ  turned  back  to- 
ward the  forest,  while  Stanley  went  away 
to  end  his  record  of  travel  with  the  words: 
"For  four  months  and  four  days  I  lived  with 
Livingstone,  and  I  never  found  a  fault  in 
him.  Each  day's  life  only  added  to  my 
admiration." 

Pathetic   indeed  the   events  of  the  few 
302 


David  Livingstone 

months  after  the  departure  of  Stanley.  For 
several  months  Livingstone  toiled  on,  racked 
with  unspeakable  pain,  able  to  take  nothing 
except  goat's  milk.  It  was  the  rainy  sea- 
son, and  he  was  worn  with  fever  and  rheu- 
matism ;  yet  each  day  he  traveled  a  few 
miles  down  the  river  bank,  exploring  on 
every  side  for  indications  of  a  slope  toward 
the  north.  In  April  he  writes:  "I  am  very 
weak  from  bleeding  through  a  vein  that 
keeps  breaking  and  saps  away  my  strength." 
Too  weak  to  use  his  instruments  after  the 
day's  march,  his  men  now  carried  him  for- 
ward on  a  litter,  for  he  was  determined  to 
press  on.  One  afternoon  he  bade  the  men 
camp  early,  and  seemed  to  be  wandering  in 
his  mind.  Midst  the  drizzling  rain  a  rude 
hut  was  hastily  constructed.  In  the  night 
the  boy  who  lay  at  the  door  of  the  tent 
called  for  Susa,  saying  that  the  master  was 
ill  and  so  still  that  he  was  afraid.  Entering 
the  tent  they  found  Livingstone  kneeling, 
his  head  buried  in  his  hands  upon  the  pil- 
low. He  had  gone  on  his  last  long  journey, 
and  no  man  was  with  him.  But  he  had 
died  praying  for  Africa — for  Africa  and  all 
her  woes  and  sins  and  wrongs,  to  the 
303 


Great  books  as  Life -Teachers 

Avenger  of  the  oppressed  and  the  Re- 
deemer of  the  lost.  In  his  journal  were 
these  words:  "All  I  can  say  in  my  solitude 
is,  may  Heaven's  rich  blessing  come  down 
on  every  one — American,  English,  Turk — 
who  will  help  to  heal  this  open  sore  of  the 
world." 

Could  Livingstone  have  known  of  the 
courage,  affection,  and  loyalty  that  his  black 
servants  were  to  manifest  after  his  death, 
that  knowledge  alone  would  have  repaid  him 
for  thirty  years  in  the  African  wastes. 
With  instant  resolution,  his  faithful  friends 
determined  to  carry  his  body  and  his  books 
to  England.  They  buried  the  heart  at  the 
base  of  a  great  tree,  on  which  they  carved 
his  name.  Having  dried  the  body  in  the 
sun,  they  wrapped  it  in  calico,  and  started 
to  the  coast.  It  was  a  journey  of  nine 
months  through  unfriendly  tribes  and  an 
unknown  region,  midst  dangers  that  con- 
quered the  admiration  of  the  world.  In  the 
retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  the  Greek  sol- 
diers marched  home,  and  were  encouraged 
by  the  love  and  welcome  of  men  who  were 
living.  Xenophon's  men  also  were  Greeks — 
soldiers,  armed  and  educated.  But  these 


David  Livingstone 

negroes  had  been  slaves,  their  Livingstone 
was  dead,  and  they  endured  innumerable 
dangers  without  any  hope  of  reward.  From 
Zanzibar  his  bones,  still  guarded  by  his 
faithful  Susa,  were  sent  to  England,  where 
they  were  met  by  a  special  train.  Sir  Wil- 
liam Ferguson  identified  the  body  immedi- 
ately by  the  false  joint  in  the  arm.  The 
heart  of  all  England  swelled  with  grief  and 
pride  over  one  of  her  noblest  sons.  In  the 
presence  of  an  immense  concourse,  Eng- 
land's greatest  scientists,  scholars,  and  citi- 
zens buried  him  in  the  center  of  the  nave  of 
Westminster  Abbey.  The  black  [slab  that 
marks  his  resting-place  bears  this  inscrip- 
tion: 

Brought  by  faithful  hands  over  land  and  sea,  here 
rests  David  Livingstone,  missionary,  traveler,  philan- 
thropist. For  thirty  years  his  life  was  spent  in  an 
unwearied  effort  to  evangelize  the  native  races,  to 
explore  the  undiscovered  secrets,  and  abolish  the 
desolating  slave  trade  of  Central  Africa. 

And  there,  too,  are  these  words  of  his 
Master's:  "Other  sheep  I  have,  which  are 
not  of  this  fold,  them  also  I  must  bring,  and 
they  shall  hear  my  voice."  Oh,  loftiest 
spirit  of  earth!  The  soul  of  Livingstone 
surpassing  those  great  ones  who  toiled  for 
305 


Great  Books  as  Life-Teachc 

fame  and  place  and  honors.  Should  it  ever 
be  our  good  fortune  to  behold  those  elect 
heroes,  Paul  and  Savonarola  and  Luther  and 
Lincoln,  with  all  the  poets  and  reformers 
and  philanthropists,  perhaps  not  far  from 
Him  whose  "name  is  above  every  name" 
we  shall  see  the  scarred  hero  who  lost  his 
life  to  the  Dark  Continent  indeed,  but 
whose  name  glows  with  the  brightness  of 
the  firmament  and  shines  like  the  stars  for- 
ever and  ever. 


306 


XII 

The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics  —  A 
Study  of  the  Life  of  William  Ewart 
Gladstone 


Look  at  the  great  modern  statesmen  who  have 
shaped  the  politics  of  the  world.  They  were  educated 
men;  were  they,  therefore,  visionary,  pedantic,  im- 
practicable? Cavour,  whose  monument  is  United 
Italy  —  one  from  the  Alps  to  Tarentum,  from  the 
lagoons  of  Venice  to  the  Gulf  of  Salerno;  Bismarck, 
who  has  raised  the  German  empire  from  a  name  to  a 
fact;  Gladstone,  to-day  the  incarnate  heart  and  con- 
science of  England —  they  are  the  perpetual  refuta- 
tion of  the  sneer  that  high  education  weakens  men 
for  practical  affairs.  Trained  themselves,  such  men 
know  the  value  of  training.  All  countries,  all  ages, 
all  men,  are  their  teachers.  The  broader  their  edu- 
cation, the  wider  the  horizon  of  their  thought  and  ob- 
servation; the  more  affluent  their  resources,  the  more 
humane  their  policy.  Would  Samuel  Adams  have 
been  a  truer  popular  leader  had  he  been  less  an  edu- 
cated man?  Would  Walpole  the  less  truly  have 
served  his  country  had  he  been,  with  all  his  capaci- 
ties, a  man  whom  England  could  have  revered  and 
loved?  Could  Gladstone  so  sway  England  with  his 
fervent  eloquence,  as  the  moon  the  tides,  were  he  a 
gambling,  swearing,  boozing  squire  like  Walpole? 
There  is  no  sophistry  more  poisonous  to  the  State,  no 
folly  more  stupendous  and  demoralizing,  than  the 
notion  that  the  purest  character  and  the  highest  edu- 
cation are  incompatible  with  the  most  commanding 
mastery  of  men  and  the  most  efficient  administration 
of  affairs. — Orations  and  Addresses  (George  William 
Curtis\  Vol.  /,//.  271,  272. 


XII 

THE  CHRISTIAN  SCHOLAR  IN  POLITICS — A 
STUDY  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  EWART 
GLADSTONE 

The  year  1809  was  a  memorable  year  for 
America  and  England.  It  saw  the  birth  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  the  greatest  of  emanci- 
pators ;  of  Charles  Darwin,  the  greatest  sci- 
entist since  Isaac  Newton ;  of  William  Ewart 
Gladstone,  the  greatest  statesman  of  the 
Victorian  era.  When  Edmund  Burke  died 
in  1797  Canning  wrote :  "  There  is  but  one 
event,  but  it  is  an  event  of  the  world: 
Burke  is  dead."  And  now  that  Gladstone 
hath  passed  from  the  strife  of  politics  to 
where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  rest  and 
peace,  England  and  America  have  but  one 
heart:  that  heart  is  very  sore.  For  this 
man,  who  reverenced  his  conscience  as  his 
king,  was  also  one  whose  "glory  was  redress- 
ing human  wrong."  At  once  the  child  of 
genius,  wealth,  and  power,  this  young  pa- 

*G!adstone,  The   Man    and  His  Work,  by   Frank  W.  Gunsaulus, 
Life  of  Gladstone,  by  Justin  McCarthy. 

309 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

trician  took  as  his  clients,  not  the  rich  and 
great,  but  the  poor  and  weak.  Oft  through 
voice  and  pen  did  he  plead  the  cause  of  the 
oppressed  in  Italy  and  Ireland,  in  Bulgaria 
and  Armenia.  Countless  reformers  and 
philanthropists  there  are  in  this  and  foreign 
lands  who  in  hours  of  discouragement  com- 
forted themselves  with  the  thought  that  this 
knight-errant  of  the  poor  was  in  Hawarden, 
and  felt  that  our  world  was  a  little  safer  be- 
cause the  "great  commoner"  was  there. 

'  *  Death  bringeth  good  fame, ' '  said  Bacon ; 
but  his  splendid  talents,  his  pure  purpose 
and  blameless  deeds,  brought  Mr.  Gladstone 
good  fame  in  a  life  that  was  singularly 
happy  and  glorious.  Refusing  the^offer  of 
a  title  and  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
he  chose  to  live  and  die  as  plain  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. ' '  Posterity, ' '  wrote  Macaulay ,  ' '  has 
obstinately  reTusedjJU^^degrade  Francis 
Bacon  into  ViscounbJ^t.  Albans."  And  if 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  nonffllc  as  earl  or  duke, 
he  stood  forth  regal  with  a  royalty  beyond 
that  of  kings.  Recently  England  cele- 
brated the  diamond  jubilee  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria, but  in  that  stately  and  brilliant 
pageant  Mr.  Gladstone  was  a  figure  clothed 
310 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

with  a  fascination  beyond  that  of  the  great- 
est of  England's  queens.  Even  those  who 
were  his  political  opponents  affirm  that 
whatever  is  high-minded,  pure,  and  disin- 
terested in  patriots  must  henceforth  be 
identified  with  his  immortal  tradition,  while 
whatever  is  base,  selfish,  or  sinister  in 
national  policy  is  rebuked  by  the  lustre  of 
his  life. 

Standing  upon  the  summit  of  the  Alpine 
mountain,  the  traveler  looks  into  sunny 
Italy  or  the  German  forests,  toward  the 
vineyards  of  France  or  the  far-off  plains 
of  Austria.  And  Mr.  Gladstone  stands  forth 
like  some  sun-crowned  mountain-peak,  su- 
premely great  in  every  side  of  his  char- 
acter and  career.  He  was  a  scholar,  and 
with  Homer  lingered  long  before  the  gates 
of  Troy,  or  with  Pericles  and  Plato  saun- 
tered through  the  groves  of  Athens.  He 
was  an  author,  and  the  mere  titles  of  his 
speeches  and  books  fill  twenty  pages  in  the 
catalogue  of  libraries.  He  was  an  orator, 
and  his  eloquence  was  such  that  oft  it 
seemed  to  his  rapt  listeners  as  if  Apollo 
had  come  again — the  music  of  the  morning 
breathing  from  his  lips.  He  was  a  states- 


Great  Books  as  Life- Teachers 

man,  and  the  reforms  he  proposed  and 
the  laws  he  created  are  milestones  measur- 
ing the  progress  of  the  English  people. 
Above  all,  he  was  a  Christian  gentle- 
man, for  religion  goes  with  the  name  of 
Gladstone  as  poetry  with  the  name  of  Burns 
or  Browning,  as  war  with  Wellington  or 
Washington. 

Going  away,  he  has  left  behind  men  of 
acute  intellect,  brave  heart,  and  eloquent 
tongue.  But  having  praised  the  statesmen 
who  remain,  let  us  confess  that  there  has 
been  but  one  who  could  first  conquer  and 
then  reconcile ;  but  one  who  could  oppose 
the  policy  and  principles  for  which  he 
once  stood  and  still  retain  the  confidence 
of  those  whom  he  had  come  to  antagonize. 
Like  Cromwell,  he  had  a  heart  of  oak  and 
hand  of  iron;  he  had  the  ardor  and  the 
integrity  of  Hampden;  he  had  the  elo- 
quence and  chivalry  of  Vane;  like  Lord 
Lawrence,  he  ' '  feared  man  so  little  because 
he  feared  God  so  much"  ;  like  Washington, 
he  had  sanity  and  moderation.  In  stormy 
epochs  it  might  have  been  said  of  him, 
"All  the  world  was  shaken,  but  not  the 
intellect  of  Gladstone."  Remembering  his 
312 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

character  and  career,  England  feels  that 
Westminster  Abbey  alone  is  worthy  to  con- 
tain his  remains.  United  in  sorrow,  the 
statesmen  who  followed  and  those  who 
opposed  Gladstone  clasped  hands  and  bore 
his  sacred  dust  into  the  " temple  of  silence 
and  reconciliation/'  where  the  enmities  of 
twenty  centuries  lie  buried. 

In  his  fascinating  studies  of  Homer  and 
the  Trojan  era,  Mr.  Gladstone  dwells  upon 
the  character  of  Jupiter  and  Minerva,  oft 
descending  into  the  tents  of  warriors  to  heal 
their  strifes  and  bickerings,  to  encourage 
the  defeated  hosts,  and  lead  them  on  to  vic- 
tory. As  we  watch  these  divine  beings 
leaving  the  Olympian  heights  to  enter  the 
earthly  scene,  one  thinks  instinctively  of 
Gladstone  himself,  towering  shoulders  high 
above  all  his  fellows,  his  great,  beautiful 
head  telling  us  that  he,  too,  is  of  "  Olympus 
and  Olympian."  Beside  other  great  states- 
men of  his  century  he  stands  forth  clothed 
with  power  and  majesty  as  with  a  garment. 

If  we  call  the  roll  of  the  great  orators  and 

advocates  with  whom  he  was  associated  for 

five   and   sixty   years,  long  is   the   list   and 

splendid  the  names.     When  Gladstone  en- 

3*3 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

tered  Parliament  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  there, 
his  thoughts  logic,  his  atmosphere  grace  and 
strength,  his  speech  aglow  with  wit  and 
humor,  his  presence  dignity,  his  voice 
honey.  O'Connell  was  there,  with  genius  to 
awe  the  multitude,  with  pathos  to  melt  the 
coldest  statesman,  whom  Wendell  Phillips 
called  "God's  anointed  king,  whose  single 
word  melts  all  wills  into  his."  Beside 
O'Connell,  with  his  passion  for  philan- 
thropy, stood  Brougham,  a  square  of  rough- 
hewn  granite,  conquering  men  by  sheer 
weight  of  mentality,  great  as  advocate,  agi- 
tator, and  orator.  Nor  must  Palmerston  be 
forgotten,  the  proud  and  stately  statesman, 
distinguished  as  foreign  secretary,  who  had 
taken  the  affairs  of  all  foreign  nations  as  his 
department,  as  Bacon  once  took  "all  knowl- 
edge as  his  province."  There,  too,  was 
Macaulay  the  essayist,  and  Grote  the  his- 
torian, and  Bulwer  the  novelist,  and  Cob- 
den  the  friend  of  the  common  people,  the 
corn-law  agitator,  whose  power  was  sincer- 
ity, whose  character  exhaled  sweetness  and 
simplicity,  whose  influence,  once  the  "corn 
laws"  were  repealed,  was  for  a  time  well- 
nigh  supreme. 

3*4 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

Another  close  friend  of  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
John  Bright,  the  Quaker  orator,  who  had 
modeled  his  speech  upon  the  simple  Saxon 
of  the  Bible  and  John  Bunyan,  a  man  of 
superb  physique  and  marvelous  voice,  with 
a  certain  gift  of  humor  and  an  eloquence 
that,  while  restrained,  yet  burned  at  white 
heat;  Disraeli,  whose  pastime  was  novel- 
writing,  whose  idol  was  politics,  with  a  will 
of  iron  and  conscience  of  india-rubber,  with 
a  genius  for  sarcasm,  who  could  open  the 
gates  of  speech  and  pour  forth  a  flood  of 
vitriolic  acid.  In  later  years,  also,  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  his  opponents.  Among 
these  was  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  with 
his  passion  for  invective,  from  whom  Eng- 
land hoped  so  much,  but  who  for  want  of 
moral  purpose  achieved  so  little;  Mr.  Bal- 
four,  the  metaphysician,  boasting  that  he 
never  read  a  newspaper,  writing  on  psycho- 
logical problems,  whose  "light  reading  be- 
fore breakfast  is  Plato  and  Aristotle/'  the 
most  charming  of  opponents,  with  an  easy, 
contemptuous  smile  at  the  moment  when  he 
sheathes  his  sword  in  the  bowels  of  his 
opponent.  Another  rival  was  Lord  Salis- 
bury, who,  with  all  the  responsibility  of  the 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

prime  ministry,  has  found  time  to  be  presi- 
dent of  the  British  Society  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Scientific  Research,  an  original 
investigator  in  the  problems  of  electricity, 
whose  arguments  for  theism  from  the  view- 
point of  science  have  been  so  highly  praised 
— a  statesman  admired  for  his  comprehen- 
sive knowledge,  solidity,  and  cautious  judg- 
ment, a  man  who  has  made  all  England 
to  be  his  debtor.  When  we  call  the  roll  of 
the  great  men  with  whom  Gladstone  was 
associated,  we  see  that  this  has  been  indeed 
an  age  of  giants.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  his 
faults,  and  made  mistakes  that  were  not  few, 
but  in  amplitude  of  faculty,  fertility  of 
resource,  in  the  richness  and  variety  of  his 
gifts  and  achievements,  he  stands  forth 
easily  the  first  statesman  of  the  Victorian 
era. 

Renowned  as  orator  and  author,  as  phil- 
anthropist and  Christian  reformer,  his  an- 
cestry accounts  only  in  a  degree  for  Mr. 
Gladstone's  greatness.  For  the  most  part 
the  hidings  of  his  power  are  wrapt  in 
clouds  and  mystery.  Through  a  long  line 
of  noble  forefathers,  nature  and  providence 
began  to  make  ready  for  the  giant  two  hun- 
316 


UNIVERSITY 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

dred  years  before  the  child  was  born.  For 
in  the  noblest  sense  this  patrician  gentle- 
man represents  breeding — high,  pure,  and 
long.  In  1620  there  was  a  Gladstone  who 
was  a  God-fearing  and  law-loving  man, 
famed  for  his  goodly  stature.  This  man 
had  a  son  who  climbed  upon  his  father's 
shoulders;  then  his  son  climbed  upon  his 
shoulders,  and  so  on,  until  at  last,  upon  the 
shoulders  of  Sir  John  Gladstone  there 
climbed  this  youth,  whose  forehead  struck 
against  the  stars.  From  the  moment  when 
the  beautiful  boy  first  enters  the  scene  he 
interprets  the  old  Roman  idea  of  a  gentle- 
man as  "a  man  of  pure  stock."  To  goodly 
stature  he  added  that  fineness  of  bone  and 
nerve  that  makes  possible  the  most  delicate 
physical  sensations,  as  opposed  to  that  ele- 
phantine coarseness  that  goes  with  vulgar 
physical  habits.  He  also  had  fineness  of 
intellect,  being  as  delicately  organized  as 
an  ^Eolian  harp,  that  makes  the  mind  sensi- 
tive to  every  truth  that  came  through  color, 
form,  or  music.  He  had  the  fineness  of 
heart  that  made  him  sympathetic  to  anoth- 
er's woe;  for  sympathy  is  the  very  first 
characteristic  of  one  who  is  well  bred,  since 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

each  "  Achilles,  who  in  the  hour  of  battle 
can  bear  himself  like  iron,  has  a  hand  that 
can  feel  the  fall  of  a  rose  petal/'  He  also 
had  that  fineness  of  conscience  that  made 
him  sensitive  to  every  shade  of  untruth,  as 
opposed  to  that  coarseness  of  nature  that 
made  a  vulgar  falsehood  easily  possible  to 
such  a  nature  as  Fox  or  Disraeli. 

He  who  has  scrutinized  the  face  and  form 
of  Mr.  Gladstone  as  he  once  stood  or  sat  in 
his  accustomed  place  in  the  House,  or  has 
studied  Millais's  famous  portrait,  must  have 
noticed  characteristics  that  are  strikingly 
Scotch.  For  Gladstone  was  an  Englishman 
only  by  birth,  in  that  his  father  exchanged 
Leith  for  Liverpool,  where  in  the  shipping 
interests  he  achieved  his  fame  and  title  as 
Sir  John  Gladstone.  In  his  address  to  his 
constituents  in  Midlothian,  the  prime  min- 
ister expressed  his  pride  in  the  fact  that 
every  drop  of  blood  in  his  veins  was  pure 
Scotch.  The  Highlanders  are  men  of  large 
stature,  brave  and  brawny,  and  the  iron 
and  granite  of  the  Highland  mountains 
found  their  way  into  the  physique  of  this 
hero.  The  Scotsman  is  thrifty,  and  has  a 
genius  for  saving  and  investing  his  pennies. 
318 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

It  was  a  Scotsman  who  went  to  Lombard 
Street  and  founded  the  Bank  of  England. 
It  was  a  Scotsman  who  went  to  the  Avenue 
in  Paris  and  founded  the  Bank  of  France. 
And  Mr.  Gladstone  came  naturally  by  his 
genius  for  finance,  that  made  his  fame  as 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  In  his  study 
of  Jennie  Deans,  Scott  makes  her  tell  the 
truth,  even  though  it  threatens  her  sister's 
life.  And  Gladstone  also  hated  every  form 
of  lying,  and  was  frank  to  the  point  of 
rudest  bluntness.  Every  Scotsman  cher- 
ishes the  secret  belief  that  he  knows  all 
about  God.  And  true  to  the  national  char- 
acteristic, Mr.  Gladstone  explored  the 
nooks  and  corners  of  every  known  theologi- 
cal system.  The  Scotsman  also  believes  in 
education,  and  so  when  the  child  was  thir- 
teen years  of  age  he  appeared  at  Eton — 
"the  handsomest  boy,"  said  the  famous 
naturalist  Murchison,  "  that  ever  entered  the 
historical  school,"  as  later  on  men  said  that 
Gladstone  was  "the  handsomest  old  man 
who  ever  appeared  in  Parliament,'*  age  never 
having  dimmed  the  fire  of  his  eyes. 

To    all    his    other    gifts    nature   added   a 
genius  for  friendship.     In  Eton  College  his 
319 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

dearest  friend  was  Arthur  Hallam,  whose 
gifts,  virtues,  and  untimely  death  Tennyson 
laments  in  the  noblest  poem  of  this  century, 
"In  Memoriam."  Among  his  close  friends 
at  Eton  and  Oxford  were  Tennyson,  Can- 
ning, Maurice,  Lowe,  and  that  youth  who 
was  to  be  known  as  Cardinal  Manning. 
"No  man,"  said  Bishop  Wordsworth,  "ever 
heard  Gladstone  speak  in  his  student  days 
at  Oxford  who  did  not  feel  that  he  would 
rise  to  be  prime  minister  of  England."  An 
indomitable  physical  constitution,  a  power- 
ful'reason,  a  perfect  memory,  an  intuitive 
^knowledge  of  men,  rare  common  sense, 
imagination,  moral  enthusiasm,  sincer 
earnestness,  wealth,  social  position  —  all 
these  stars  glow  in  the  constellation  of  his 
genius.  Nature  and  providence  denied  no 
talent  that  could  aid  him  in  achieving  a 
great  career. 

Reviewing  this  illustrious  life,  we  see 
that  the  genius  of  Gladstone's  life  was  the 
genius  of  patriotism.  The  child  of  leisure, 
relinquishing  long-cherished  plans  for  the 
pulpit  through  the  pressure  of  his  fath 
iron  will,  he  determined  to  enter  Parliament, 
and  bring  to  the  questions  of  practical  legis- 
320 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

lation  the  patient  study,  the  wide  research, 
the  trained  faculties  that  Isaac  Newton 
brought  to  his  work  in  astronomy,  and 
Bacon  to  his  work  in  philosophy,  and  Gib- 
bon to  his  work  in  history.  Believing  in 
the  leadership  of  educated  men,  he  outlined 
his  career  as  that  of  a  scholar  in  politics. 
He  felt  that  every  sneer  at  the  scholar  is  the 
sneer  of  the  demagogue,  plotting  some  form 
of  treason  against  the  state.  He  knew  that 
the  foundations  of  law  and  jurisprudence  go 
back  to  a  scholar  named  Moses.  He  knew 
that  the  golden  age  of  Athens  was  ushered 
in  by  a  scholar  named  Pericles.  He  knew 
that  Florence  and  Venice  and  Oxford  and 
London  had  their  foundations  in  wisdom 
and  knowledge;  and  that  from  the  day 
"when  Themistocles  led  the  educated 
Athenians  at  Salamis  to  that  when  Von 
Moltke  marshaled  the  educated  Germans 
against  France,  the  foundations  of  states  are 
not  laid  in  ignorance."  Emulating  the 
Puritan  poet  Milton,  Gladstone  the  student 
seems  to  have  looked  forward  to  the  time 
when  he  might  enter  the  arena  of  Parlia- 
ment to  attack  selfish  rulers,  class  privileges, 
and  ancient  abuses.  Certainly,  had  he  fore- 
321 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

seen  the  day  when  he  should  stand  forth  in 
deadly  conflict  with  leaders  of  wrong  against 
humanity,  he  could  scarcely  have  prepared 
himself  more  carefully. 

Leaving  the  lecture-halls  and  libraries  at 
Oxford,  the  eager  youth  remembered  that 
he  lived  in  an  historic  land,  hallowed  by  the 
life  and  death  of  patriots,  po  :oes. 

A  pilgrim  to  England's  sacred  shrines,  one 
day  he  turned  his  steps  toward  Runnymede, 
where  brave  barons  wrested  "the  great 
charter"  from  an  ignoble  king.  He  made 
his  way  to  Hampton  Court,  and  mused 
upon  Wolsey's  vast  ambition.  He  turned 
his  steps  toward  the  House  of  Parliament, 
and  in  imagination  heard  Burke  close  his 
immortal  speech  against  Hastings.  He 
sought  out  John  Milton's  tomb,  and  read 
again  the  scholar's  plea  for  the  freedom  of 
the  press.  He  entered  the  great  ab1 
and  standing  beside  the  memorials  of  I 
land's  greatest  statesmen,  he  recalled  famous 
men  of  old  —  kings,  counselors,  patriots 
prodigal  of  their  blood,  just  men  by  whom 
impartial  laws  were  given;  and  standing 
there,  the  genius  of  the  abbey  whispered  tc 
him  that  only  the  ripest  training,  the  purest 
322 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

purpose,  the  holiest  life,  could  make  him  a 
fit  instrument  for  serving  the  cause  of  law 
and  liberty. 

Entering  Parliament,  he  began  his  studies 
in  the  history  of  liberty,  and  traced  the  rise 
of  democracy  and  free  institutions.  He 
studied  the  ideal  commonwealths,  the  laws 
of  Moses,  the  Republic  of  Plato,  the  City  of 
God,  by  Augustine,  More's  Utopia.  He 
made  a  comparative  study  of  the  great  epics, 
the  Iliad,  the  ^Eneid,  the  Inferno,  the 
poems  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton.  With 
the  enthusiasm  of  an  enraptured  admirer 
he  wrote  his  book,  "Juventus  Mundi," 
redeeming  himself  out  of  drudgery  by  wan- 
dering far  with  Homer  in  that  time  "when 
all  the  world  was  young."  During  the 
evenings  of  one  session  of  Parliament  he 
read  the  works  of  Augustine  in  twenty-two 
volumes.  For  recreation  he  studied  old 
china,  rare  books  and  bindings,  mosaics, 
colored  glass,  rugs  and  tapestries,  the  great- 
est paintings  of  history.  Very  early  in  his 
career  he  developed  the  theory  that  the 
scholar  can  best  rest  his  brain  by  change  of 
occupation.  Therefore  in  his  library  he  had 
three  tables,  studying  at  one  the  problems 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

of  politics,  at  another  the  problems  of  reli- 
gion, and  at  a  third  the  problems  of  litera- 
ture. An  eager,  tireless,  indefatigable  stu- 
dent for  eighty-one  years,  he  left  a  library 
of  twenty-five  thousand  volumes — books 
filled  with  his  notes,  markings,  references, 
and  impressions  of  the  author. 

Old  age  itself  could  not  dull  the  ardor  of 
his  enthusiasm  as  a  student.  His  first  book 
upon  "Church  and  State"  made  a  great  sen- 
sation, as  did  his  last,  written  fifty  years 
later.  At  eighty-four  he  published  the 
translations  of  the  poems  of  Horace.  At 
eighty-five  he  entered  the  realm  of  apolo- 
getics, and  wrote  "The  Impregnable  Rock 
of  Holy  Scriptures."  At  eighty-six  he  pub- 
lished a  reprint  of  Butler's  Analogy,  with 
copious  notes  and  comments.  His  intellec- 
tual faculty  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  history. 
When  other  men  retire  from  actual  life  their 
intellectual  faculties  seem  to  wane,  like 
those  Western  rivers  that  begin  with  full 
banks,  but  finally  sink  away  in  the  sand  be- 
fore the  life  course  is  half  run.  But  Mr. 
Gladstone's  life  was  like  a  mountain-fed 
stream,  that  runs  full-breasted  to  the  sea, 
broadening  and  deepening  up  to  the  very 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

moment  that  it  disappears  in  the  vast  occ 
that  lies  beyond. 

As  a  scholar  and  author  his  crownm^ 
characteristic  was  his  intellectual  hospitality. 
At  eighty  years  of  age,  mentally  he  was  still 
growing  with  the  rapidity  of  a  boy.  His 
rule  was  to  take  up  at  least  one  new  subject 
every  three  months.  Therefore  his  life 
increased  in  freshness  and  zest  as  it  ad- 
vanced in  years.  For  him  life's  best  wine 
was  reserved  for  the  last  of  the  feast.  The 
most  fascinating  period  of  Gladstone's  career 
was  between  the  years  named — seventy  and 
eighty-five.  With  biting  sarcasm  Disraeli 
once  taunted  him  with  being  inconsistent, 
affirming  that  no  man  knew  to-day  what 
Gladstone  would  think  or  say  to-morrow. 
He  began,  indeed,  as  a  Tory,  but  ended  as 
a  Radical.  During  his  long  career  his  polit- 
ical views  passed  through  many  changes, 
but  these  changes  represent,  not  fickleness, 
but  the  evolution  of  a  scholar.  His  growth 
was  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear.  One  of  the  tests  of 
greatness  is  growth.  Mediocrity  is  never 
mistaken.  The  two-talent  man  cannot 
afford  to  confess  that  he  was  wrong  yes- 
325 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

terday.  But  genius,  conscious  of  infinite 
reserves,  can  afford  to  confess  its  mistakes. 
Now  and  then  a  politician  declares  that  he 
believes  to-day  just  what  he  believed  ten 
years  ago,  and  has  made  no  change,  serenely 
unconscious  of  the  fact  that  this  is  equiva- 
lent to  the  fact  that  he  has  not  had  an  idea 
in  ten  years.  He  who  believes  to-day  what 
he  believed  a  year  ago  may  as  well  order  his 
burial  robes — his  place  is  in  the  cemetery. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  alive  and  eager,  and  his 
growth  registered  itself  in  changes.  Provi- 
dence marched  on,  and  the  statesman 
marched  on  with  Him.  In  his  youth  Glad- 
stone was  a  pioneer,  and  in  extreme  old  age 
he  was  still  a  scout,  opening  up  new  paths 
in  the  wilderness.  He  was  an  optimist,  an 
innovator,  and  through  all  the  smoke  of 
battle  and  defeat  he  saw  afar  off  the  final 
victory. 

Reviewing  his  political  career,  Lord  Salis- 
bury has  said  that  Mr.  Gladstone  will  be 
remembered  less  for  his  political  achieve- 
ments than  for  his  Christian  ideals  in  poli- 
tics. His  whole  career  was  devoted  to  the 
attempt  to  reconcile  politics  to  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  just  as  John  Stuart  Mill  tried 
326 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

to  reconcile  politics  with  political  economy. 
Therefore  the  reforms  that  Gladstone  pro- 
posed, the  principles  he  advocated,  register 
his  attempt  to  carry  political  legislation  up 
to  the  level  of  ideal  morals.  In  his  first 
book  on  church  and  state  he  lifted  up  an 
ideal  standard,  and  boldly  asserted  that  the 
state  must  have  a  conscience,  and  having  a 
conscience,  will  be  the  better  for  taxing 
itself  for  the  support  of  a  state  religion. 
Then  came  the  free-trade  struggle,  in  which 
he  threw  himself  against  the  landed  inter- 
ests of  his  family  and  his  class,  joining  Cob- 
den  and  Bright  in  a  movement  to  open  the 
ports  of  England  to  the  grain  markets  of 
the  world.  Having  heard  of  the  sufferings 
of  political  prisoners  in  Naples,  he  deter- 
mined to  give  up  his  holiday  and  investigate 
the  question,  He  found  means  to  visit  the 
prisons,  and  saw  these  patriots  in  their  dun- 
geons. Having  searched  the  question  to 
the  bottom,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the 
whole  civilized  and  Christian  world,  in  which 
he  denounced  this  treatment  of  political 
prisoners  as  a  blot  upon  civilization,  reli- 
gion, humanity,  and  decency.  He  affirmed 
that  the  rule  of  Ferdinand  was  the  negation 
327 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

of  God  erected  into  a  government.  Through 
these  letters  he  won  from  the  Italians  the 
credit  of  being  "one  of  the  founders  of  free 
Italy." 

Then  came  his  repeal  of  the  taxes  upon 
education,  his  movement  for  popular  suf- 
frage, the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish 
church,  the  movement  for  national  educa- 
tion, his  plea  for  Bulgaria,  for  home  rule  in 
Ireland,  for  the  universality  of  the  tenant- 
right  custom,  and  last  of  all  he  lifted  his 
shield  above  the  oppressed  in  Armenia  and 
Crete.  Against  his  own  landed  and  her 
tary  interests  he  made  himself  the  client  of 
the  poor  and  lowly.  He  was  disinterested, 
and  had  a  magnificent  disregard  of  popular- 
ity, and  therefore  proudly  independent. 
He  achieved  the  distinction  of  being  one  of 
the  most  cordially  hated  men  of  his  era. 
With  the  simple  ingenuousness  of  a  child, 
he  believed  that  ideal  Christianity  is  the  only 
practical  politics.  Therefore,  where  he  be- 
gan his  career  there  he  ended  it,  affirming 
that  England  could  lead  the  grand  proces- 
sion of  the  nations  only  as  she  herself  walked 
in  the  paths  of  religion  and  peace  that  Jesus 
Christ  had  opened. 

328 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

But  that  for  which  Mr.  Gladstone  will  be 
chiefly  remembered  is  his  characteristic  as  a 
Christian  scholar  in  politics.  What  color  is 
to  Raphael,  what  music  is  to  Mozart,  what 
philosophy  is  to  Bacon,  that  religion  was  to 
Gladstone.  His  earliest  passion  and  his 
latest  enthusiasm  was  the  passion  and  en- 
thusiasm for  the  character  and  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ.  An  indefatigable  student  of 
Homer,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare,  the  litera- 
ture of  which  he  was  most  fond  was  the 
Bible.  As  the  knights  of  the  Round  Table 
served  King  Arthur,  so,  but  far  more  faith- 
fully, he  sought  to  serve  our  "Great  Mas- 
ter, Christ."  Statesman  and  financier,  he 
was  also  seer  and  disciple.  No  Puritan  was 
ever  more  severe  in  his  emphasis  of  method 
and  habit  in  his  Christian  life.  So  scrupu- 
lous was  he  in  his  recognition  of  the  Sab- 
bath day,  that,  though  four  times  prime  min- 
ister, he  absolutely  refused  to  receive  upon 
the  Sabbath  one  of  the  government  officials, 
or  to  discuss  any  political  crisis  or  measure. 
Going  into  the  pulpit  on  Sunday  to  read 
prayers  in  the  church  of  Hawarden,  each 
morning  of  the  six  week  days  he  also  made 
his  way  to  the  same  little  church  to  bow 
329 


Great  Books  as  Life -Teachers 

while  the  rector  read  daily  prayers.  When 
prime  minister  for  the  last  time  he  brought 
an  old  coachman  up  to  London  for  medical 
treatment,  and  having  found  suitable  quar- 
ters, he  charged  his  physician  to  send  him 
word  should  a  crisis  come.  The  end  came 
at  an  hour  when  Mr.  Gladstone  was  in  an 
important  discussion  with  Sir  William  liar- 
court.  In  that  hour  the  prime  mini 
dropped  everything,  and  hurrying  to  an- 
other part  of  the  city,  he  lent  his  old  servant 
comfort  as  he  passed  down  into  the  dark 
valley,  and  this  servant  died  while  the  prime 
minister  of  England  was  praying  to  the 
Eternal  God,  who  is  Lord  of  death  and  life 
alike,  just  as,  while  his  own  son  read  the 
solemn  prayer,  he  himself  passed  on  into 
realms  of  happiness  and  immortal  peace. 

Great  as  Gladstone  was  as  orator,  scholar, 
and  statesman,  he  was  greater  still  as  a 
Christian.  With  all  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
young  soldier  for  some  noble  general,  of 
a  pupil  for  some  artist  master,  he  poured 
forth  all  his  gifts  and  ambitions  at  the  be- 
hest of  his  divine  Master  and  Saviour. 

Gladstone  belonged  to  a  race  of  giants, 
not  only  because  he  was  great  in  himself, 
330 


The  Christian  Scholar  in  Politics 

but  also  because  long  companionship  lent 
him  something  of  the  majesty  of  his  divine 
Master.  For  the  secret  of  the  success  of 
this  hero  who  was  at  once  orator,  scholar, 
and  statesman,  is  the  secret  of  the  Messiah. 
Noisy  to-day  are  the  skeptics,  but  should 
we  mention  the  name  of  some  one  of  these 
doubters  best  known  for  talent,  and  multi- 
ply his  work  a  thousand-fold,  yet,  set 
over  against  the  sublime  achievements  and 
the  massive  character  of  Gladstone,  he  would 
seem  as  a  mud  hut  over  against  a  marble 
house.  The  lesson  of  this  great  life  is  that 
the  most  splendid  gifts,  opportunities,  and 
ambitions  should  be  given  to  Him  who 
said,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto 
one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren  ye 
have  done  it  unto  Me." 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Abraham 15 

^Eneid 119 

^Eschylus__.  73,  89,    91 

Agamemnon 91 

Amsterdam 97 

Angelo 47 

Animated  bookworm   96 

Antigone  ._ _     55 

Antioch 72 

Apollo  of  beauty  47,    64 

Arras 144 

Ascent  of  Man 223 

Augustine 10 

Bacon,  Francis.__22,     33 

89,  193 
Baldassarre — 65,  69,     73 

76,  77 

meets  Tito 75 

denounces  Tito 77 

kills  Tito 83 

Balzac  __ 22 

Bardo  de  Bardi 67,  70 

library  of 78 

Barnett's  social 
settlement  in 
Whitechapel 

Road 38 

Beauty,  real _.  54 

and  simplicity 55 

law  of 54 

an  interior  quality  54 

Bede 32 

Beecher(H.W.)  18,33,  35 


PAGE 

Beecher's  defense  of 

evolution 33 

Beggard 47 

Belial  _ _ _     44 

Besant,  Walter 25 

Bible,    Tennyson's 

quotation  from..   162 
literal     interpreta- 
tion of 21 

Book  of  Nature 214 

Boston 97 

Brooks 18 

Browning 17,26,  181 

Bryant 55 

Bunyan 32 

Burns,  Robert 33,    55 

55,  »f$ 
Byron 35,  189 

Calvin 18 

Cadmon 32 

Calvo 68 

Carlyle.22,  26,  27,  39,  42 
Carlyle   and  Tenny- 
son    156,  212 

on  Burns 188,  196 

Cathedral 49 

Cennini 70 

Change  in  the  spirit 
of  English  writ- 
ers, the 24 

Character -  59 

Character .164,  226 

lacking  in   Burns-  189 


333 


Index 


PAGE 

Chillingworth,Roger    32 

vengeance 103 

Cicero 24 

City,  perils  of 231 

Christ's    enrichment 

of  all  life 35 

Christ ---36>  51*  J4J 

love  and  death  of.  _     05 

Christ  of  Tennyson's 

faith 147 

Christ's  presence  the 
stimulus  for  all 
future  ages 35 

Christ's  touch  upon 
poverty,  mar- 
riage and  war__  34 

Christ's  touch    upon 

work  and  wages     35 

Conscience 106 

juggling  with...   183 

Constantinople 79 

Countess  of   Anjou.     30 

Cosette 146 

Costermongers      of 

London 241 

Cromwell's  view  of 
the  Puritan 
preacher 32 

Dante__i7,  64,89,93,  120 

Darwin 153 

David 63,  114,  141 

David's   Confession.  95 
Death  and  eternal  life  222 

De  Quincey 193 

Development,  arrest 

of 222 

Dimmesdale 91 

scholar 98 

conscience 106 

plea__ 101 

eloquence 112 

scaffold,  on 113 


PAGE 

Dimmesdale  tri- 
umphs    113 

sickness 114 

confesses ...   114 

dies 114 

Dickens 25 

Diffusion  of  the  beau- 
tiful  _.  30 

Dives -. 

Divine  Comedy.  119,  120 

Divine  Heart 115 

Donatello 91 

Doubt,  Tennyson's 
place  in  dispel- 
ling   

Dramatic  scene 100 

Drummond,  Henry.  207 
reconciler    of     re- 
ligion and  science  .'  i  2 
conception  of  crea- 
tion  219 

Dryden 24 

Edison _.  29 

Edwards,  Jonathan..  92 

Elijah 21,  27 

Eliot,  George  .23,  25,  64 

Elisha 17 

Erne rson 26,  38,  90 

Emerson  and  Carl  vie 
as  pr ophe  t  i  c 

seers 26 

Epictetus 55 

Erasmus 32 

Evolution,    early 

stages  of 212 

middle  ground 215 

Christian    217 

Evolutionary  growth 
of  mineral,  vege- 
table, and  animal 

life 19 

Expansion  of  life,  the  33 


334 


Index 


PAGE 

Fact    stranger    than 

fiction 141 

Fallacy  of  the  pessi- 
mist's idea 18 

Fantine 118,  146 

Faust 138 

Fielding 24 

Fingers     of    eternal 

justice 83 

Florence 58,67,     68 

Flower  girls 47 

Forward  movement 
of  Christianity, 

the 34 

Fra  Luca _.     73 

Friendship 200 

Froude 32 

Gareth    165 

Genius  and  responsi- 
bility   197 

Geraint 167 

German  race 89 

Gibbon .22,     40 

Gladstone 17,  153,  309 

God 38,60,    67 

Tennyson's  faith  in  160 

of  truth 52 

is  just 75,  149 

will  not  forget  His 

dead 60 

sets  keepers   to 

guard  the  living     60 
God's  continual  pres- 
ence      16 

nearness    to    His 

people  of  old 15 

Goethe 23,  35,     89 

Goodness  more  than 

gold 38 

Great  benefit  to  the 
poor  of  the  new 
tendency  of  in- 


PAGS 
vention    and    of 

art 29,     30 

Great  Heart 128,  129 

Greek  learning  -.71,    89 
Guizot _.     32 

Hamlet _  58 

Hampden 23,  35 

Hawthorne  90,  91,  94,  95 
Heart    that     feels 

deeply,  the 22 

He  saved  others, 
Himself  He  can- 
not save 146 

Hebrew  peoples 89 

Hester 109 

Homer    89 

Hugo,  Victor 25,  120 

Hunt,  Leigh 35 

Huxley 208,  221 

Idylls  of  theKing  120,  153 

Iliad 119 

Immortality 161 

Independence  Hall..     57* 
Influence,     uncon- 
scious    169 

Inspiration  the  com- 
mon gift 15,  16 

Iron  Age 98 

Italy's  St.  Peters 57 

James  Henry 22 

Javert___ 143 

John 21,22,     23 

John's  vision 50 

Johnson,  Dr. 40 

Kant  and  the  moral 

law 93 

Keats 40 

Kingsley,    Charles..  25 

King  Arthur 163 


335 


Index 


PAGE 

King  James 32 

King  Lear. 121 

Lady  of  Sorrows 99 

Lamps    of    architec- 
ture  45 

Lancelot i?2 

Law  of  obedience —     52 

beauty 54 

gravity 52 

resistance 52 

sacrifice 54 

truth 51 

Lazarus 18,  122 

Leisure,  duties  of —  233 

Les  Miserables 56,  119 

Liberty,  no 52 

for  planets  or  seas    52 

Liddon   18 

Lies,  the  careless  lie     50 

child's.... 50 

patriotic 50 

weak  man's 51 

Life,  place  of 163 

spiritual  not  spon- 
taneous   222 

Life's  deadliest  enemy  50 

Lincoln 17,  35,  153 

Livingstone,  David  _  249 

child  of 54 

Loan  associations 241 

Lodging  houses 242 

London 122 

Longfellow 17,    90 

Lord  Mayor's  day_.   122 

Love,  all  enduring. _  101 

purifying  power  of  171 

as  law 225 

o  f      Livingstone's 

servants 304 

Lowell 26,28,     90 

lesson  of  the  pres- 
ent and  future..     28 


PACK 

Luther 22,  32 

Lying,    foundation 

stones 49 

columns 49 

tiles 49 

Mammon.. 44 

Man  embryo 224 

Marble  Faun 91 

Marins 148 

Materialism  of  early 

I9th  century 158 

Mazzine 38 

Mecca 67 

Men,  ten-talent 184 

Message  of  Ruskin,  the  27 

Milton 2i 

on  genius 198 

Paradise  Lost.  .58,  89 
119,  120 

Modern  painters 38 

Montegut,  M 92 

Moral  genius  that  Is 

brave  because  it 

is  pure,  the 23 

Moses 15,  16,  21,  23 

Motley  90 

Music  as  redemptive 

power. 201 

Napoleon 194 

Nathan 63 

Nature    95 

Natural  law  in  spirit- 
ual world _-  218 

Nello'shope _.  80 

Nemesis 72 

New     era     for     the 

church,  a 33 

New  enthusiasm  for 

humanity,   the.-  25 
New  leaders  for  new 

emergencies 21 


336 


Index 


PACK 

Nightingale,  Flor- 
ence _ 35 

Novelists  as  prophets 

and  seers 24 

Obedience 52 

of  Christ 53 

Paris 122 

Parliamentary  re- 
forms  246 

Parthenon 57,     58 

Paul 21,22,     23 

32,  35 

Peleus  _ 119 

Pericles 57 

Pessimistic  view  in 
literature  and 

music,  the 17 

Pessimistic  view  in 
law,theology, 
and  c  reati  ve 

work,  the 18 

Peter  repenting 141 

Pilgrim's  Progress.-  63 

Pillory,  the 99 

Plato 57,  166 

Poet,  place  and  pow- 
er of 154,  176 

Point  Vecchio 81 

Pope    24 

Poverty,    r  e  fi  n  i  n  g 

power  of 284 

Prayer 161 

Preachers   as  divine 

prophets 32 

Prodigal  son 63 

Punishment  of  van- 
dals    58 

Puritan  era 92 

code 99 

election in 

Pym _ 23 


PAGB 

Remorse 108 

Retzch 138 

Release   from   old 

dogmas,  the 34 

Religious   faith    of 

Tennyson 157 

Religious  faith   of 

Livingstone 302 

Repentance 173 

Robertson  of  Brigh- 
ton   _.     32 

Romanes 217 

Romola 71 

Romola's     love     for 

Tito  dies _.     79 

Rosalind 55 

Royal  society  and  re- 
ligion   218 

Rucellai's  palace 77 

Ruskin 26,  27,  166 

seven  lamps 39 

the  apostle  of  gen- 
tle words 39 

loving  nature 37 

modern  painters. .     38 

Sacrifice,  law  of 54 

Salisbury  on  theism  218 
Same  principle  in  in- 
dividual life,  the 
(principle   of 

progress) 20,     21 

San  Marco  _ 81 

Saul 95,  i4i 

Saul  of  Browning —  181 
Savonarola — 22,  35, 

Scala  palace 

Scarlet  Letter  64,  88,    99 
Schools   of    Shaftes- 

bury 240 

Science, limitations  of  209 
Scientists      versus 

seers   _  208 


337 


Index 


PAGE 

Self-sacrifice  as  law-  225 

Seneca 24 

Septimius  Felton  ___  91 

Seven  laws  of  life —  48 
Shaftesbury,  Lord, 

self-denial  of —  234 

Shakespeare..  17,  58,  89 

Shelley --  35 

Sin,  involving  power  169 

wrecking    Burns.  _  189 

Sins,  are  seeds. ..75,  128 

Smith,  Sidney 24 

Smollett 24 

Society's  greatest 

peril  ._ 52 

Socrates 35,  57 

Solitude,  dangers 

of 199 

Soul,  laws  of 192 

recovery  of 198 

Spurgeon 18 

Stairway  of  red-hot 

marble 94 

St.  Pauls 12 

Stanley,  Augusta 35 

Stanley 300 

Submerged  class 121 

Tendency  of  inven- 
tion and  the  me- 
chanical arts,  the  29 

Tennyson 17,26,  120 

death  of 176 

Tennyson's      lament 

over  Burns 191 

Tenements  of  Lon- 
don   239 

Tessa 74 

Thebes 59 

Theology  and  sci- 
ence   205 

Thoughts 59 

Tintoretto ..49,    59 


PACK 
Tito -_ 

meets  Tessa 73 

growing   influence  70 

marriage 71 

denounced  

a  traitor   80 

Tito's  selfishness 68 

Toynbee 41 

Tragedy  of  Saul 183 

ofBurns 188 

of  del  Sarto _  192 

of  De  Quincey 193 

of  Napoleon 194 

Transgression,  self- 
punishing  102 

Twist,  Oliver 25 

Uncle  Tom's  Cab- 
in  25 

Universality  of  aids 
to  comfort  and 
convenience,  the  31 

Valjean,  Jean 124 

committed    to    the 

galleys 125 

tries  Providence..    127 

the  bishop 128 

in  despair 132 

tempted _.   135 

His  Gethsemane..   145 

"I  see  light" 150 

Vandal    59 

Venice    47 

Verona 49 

Via  Dolorosa...  98 

V|rgil- 89,     91 

Vision     that    sees 

clearly,  the 21 

Von  Rile 47 

Wagner 17 

Washington 35 


333 


Index 


PAGE 

Watt _.  31 

Wealth 44 

Webster,    Daniel.  17,  93 

Wesley 18 

Willard,    Frances...  35 

Wordsworth  __  20 


PAGB 

World's  progress  up- 
ward through 
aid  of  man,  the. _  20 

Xenophon 50 

Youth,  tragedies  of.   191 
Zola 22 


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